


i'm lying, i'm so very far from fine

by TheGuardianAngel



Series: tainted blood [2]
Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Autoimmune disease, Implied/Referenced Depression, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mentions of Past Stillbirth, Needles, Present Tense, Suicidal Thoughts, Type 1 Diabetes, a little bit of mike/bonnie if you squint, medical talk, mentions of Rebecca's childbirth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-21 19:22:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11363988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGuardianAngel/pseuds/TheGuardianAngel
Summary: Briefly, she’s scared that if she speaks, she may completely dissolve into hysterical tears again.Briefly, she wants to punch herself in the face for having thoughts like that again – because no one, except for Carver, should have to walk on eggshells in order to have a conversation with her. Of course, there’s the subject matter.Part of her wants to sarcastically turn to her friend and say, 'Yeah, I’m perfectly fine and peachy and I’m not dying inside and out, and Kenny’s absolutely fine. How’re you, Rebecca?'





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have literally no idea how this came to be so quickly. 
> 
> I received so much feedback for the first story, the oneshot, that I decided to write a second story and make it a series. I might make one more, but I'm not sure. I'm thankful for every little kudos, comment, and hit. Thank you all so much, and I hope I don't disappoint. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I am NOT diabetic. I'm a hypoglycemic 16 year old with too much time on her hands. If I got something wrong, please let me know and I will immediately correct it to the best of my ability.
> 
> The title comes from "Fall Away" by twenty-one pilots.

When she steps on the beaten up old scale, the first thing she realizes is how skeletal she must actually be if Vera and Carlos want to weigh her to see if she actually is underweight. Sure, her face looks thin, and Luke wanted to force her to eat, and her clothes are too big – but being underweight just seems normal.

Clementine remembers how much weight Christa had shed after Omid’s death. She was too depressed to eat, and after the birth and (it pains Clementine to the think about it) death of her baby, even more had come off. At about six feet tall, she had a concave stomach and every bone stuck out so much that one could count them.

But diabetes is a wasting disease. It isn’t like Clementine is refusing to eat… not now, anyway. She remembers refusing food on the last day of the group’s week long trip into the mountains, but it wasn’t intentional – who eats when they are actively vomiting up every morsel they put into their body?

Truthfully, she’s starving. Her stomach keeps growling, begging for something, _anything_ , but as she stares down at the needles in her arms, Clementine wonders if it’s even worth it. She doesn’t understand insulin, or how it works, or _why_ she needs it – but she’s heard Vera say that she’ll have to take and that she needs it to survive, and that it involves needles.

Clementine doesn’t want to die, except for when she thinks about how many needles she’ll inevitably need to come into contact with. Her head hurts and she decides to push it down and look away before she can get sick from staring at the needles and the intravenous bags set up on a stand.

The number on the beaten up scale is difficult to make out, but Vera kneels down to look at it, and then takes her height using a tape measure while Carlos mumbles something about needing better equipment for a medical bay.

It takes Vera several minutes after she leaves the room to return. She goes into another room, and comes out later with a multicolored sheet of paper that she scans for over a minute with her finger before she speaks.

Clementine is four foot-nine inches tall, and weighs fifty-seven pounds. Vera tells her this with a straight face, but doesn’t seem to mask the fact that this isn’t good. She looks at Clementine, then down at the Body Mass Index chart in her hands, and turns it around to show the girl the multi-colored squares on an X-and-Y-axis chart.

“I’m not tryin’ to worry you at all, but if you were one of my patients and I didn’t know about your condition, I’d have thought you had anorexia nervosa. I’d recommend to your parent or guardian that you get a blood test or a psych-eval. I’m not trying to scare you, but I want you to know that this is a really serious condition.” Vera spits this out very suddenly, sounding both uncomfortable and worried. Neither she nor Clementine look at each other in the eye. Clementine can’t bring herself to say anything to this.

She moves the stand with the intravenous bags back towards the cot and sits down on it, her heart beating wildly against her chest. She knows Vera is serious, there’s no _bullshit_ in her words. No lie. No exaggeration.

Clementine’s heart sinks. She locks eyes with Carlos, who is across the room, surveying both of them. She wonders what he’s going to tell the rest of group; would he tell them that she’s sick? That’s she’s a type one diabetic and didn’t know it? That she’s probably going to die because the only other medic at Howe’s has no idea if they have enough insulin to keep her alive?

Kenny’s going to be upset, she knows this for a fact. If he doesn’t storm in demanding to know where Clementine has gone, she’ll be surprised. If he’s not upset in general, she’ll be surprised. She wants to see him, or someone other than Carlos and Vera – not counting Carver or Bonnie.

Her head continues its pain. It almost feels as if someone’s squeezing her too hard – it’s not sharp pain, more like a combination of being too hot and too cold that never stays consistent and continuously changes each little detail of itself. Her entire body hurts and she feels weak and flu-like.  
Vera sticks her finger with the black pen this time and her blood glucose reads at just below eight-hundred and twenty milligrams per deciliter, which tells her that the insulin is working, albeit extremely slowly.

Clementine doesn’t even care anymore; all she wants is for sleep to take her.

* * *

Carver bursts into the medical bay when he notices Clementine isn’t accounted for that evening. He’s heard from Bonnie and the other guards and Howe’s members that she had a grand mal seizure and Clementine can tell just from the tone of his voice that he isn’t happy.

Of course, they’ve all heard the news and part of the reason he’s not happy has nothing to with Clementine – just hours before, Carver had thrown Reggie from the top of the building in a fit of rage, right in front of Sarah.

“Where is she?” Carlos demands when he hears this from Carver. Clementine freezes, unable to move, and she notices Carlos hiding his braced fingers behind his back.

Carver gives him the same, slightly twisted smile he’s been showing the entire time Clementine has known him. The same one he used to get her to let him into the cabin, and the same one he held when he shot Walter in the head.

“She’s with the rest of your group.” he replies curtly, and then adds in a pompous tone, “I’ve already explained her why I had to do it. I liked Reggie, he was a funny guy – but sometimes, you have to make sacrifices. Incompetence… there’s just no place for it here.” For the last part, he speaks as if he’s talking to a small child rather than a grown man.

Clementine shivers before she begins to panic. She remembers hearing Carver and Troy snark about Reggie’s _incompetence_ as they called it, and something – probably the horrified, indignant look on Vera’s face and the ‘I’m-resisting-the-urge-to-strangle-you’ expression on Carlos’ face – tells her that they weren’t referring to Reggie’s social awkwardness.

She knows deep inside that the ‘incompetence’ is referring to Reggie’s missing left arm. He was missing his arm through no fault of his own – he didn’t _ask_ to be bitten, and he didn’t ask for that other guy from the Pen (it takes Clementine a moment to remember the man’s name – _Mike_ ) to chop it off. She also guesses Carver must be trying to strike a nerve in Carlos because of Sarah’s strange behaviors. She thinks of the needles in her arm and wants to crawl in a hole; she can’t pull her weight while connected to two IVs, and she can’t pull her weight if she’s resisting the urge to not vomit or urinate or pass out or _seize_ –

That’s how Clementine finds herself panicking – she pulls the small blanket Vera gave her over her arm, unable to stop herself from trembling while tears are coming to her eyes against her will. Her heart rate speeds up, eventually hammering against her chest so hard that she thinks she may have taken her last breath.

“I heard you had a seizure this morning, Clementine.”

Clementine’s gaze instantly shoots up. Carver has pushed past Carlos and walks straight towards her. He has a kind expression on his face. He doesn’t look threatening. He speaks gently. Somehow, simultaneously, the expressions betray him because she knows exactly what he’s doing.

“… Yes.” is all Clementine can force herself to spit out. She meets Carver’s eye and struggles to maintain the connection as he kneels down to her – almost as if they’re _friends_. As if she would ever want to be allied with someone like _him_ –

He looks up to Vera, and that’s when Clementine notices that Vera looks absolutely terrified. She’s practically cowering in the corner of the room, also looking as if she may cry.

“She’s conscious now.” Carver informs Vera in a dangerous voice, like it’s not completely obvious and Clementine isn’t even listening. “So would you like to tell me why the fuck she’s not in the Pen with the rest?”

For a moment, Clementine thinks Vera’s going to answer him. She opens her mouth, but Carlos quickly speaks over her, noticing the nurse’s extreme unease. Carver and Carlos are approximately the same height, around six feet tall, and Vera is at least five-foot ten, but she almost looks just as small as Bonnie did back in the armory. Just like a small child waiting to be hit across the face.

“We had to run a few tests in order to figure out what caused her seizure.” Carlos informs Carver quickly. The other man turns from Vera and a small smile fills his face. Once again, a shiver runs up Clementine’s spine.

She knows exactly what Carlos is going to tell him – the truth. She knows Carlos isn’t as scared of Carver as Vera but she knows he’s probably still too scared to lie the man, especially after what Carver did to Reggie. And Clementine can see Carlos’ mangled and broken fingers quite clearly.

“What _tests_?” Carver spits, narrowing his eyes.

“I had to test her blood glucose -” Carlos looks shifty and looks from Carver to Clementine. “It’s… it’s extremely high. Vera placed Clementine on an insulin drip.”

Carver hears the word ‘insulin’ and makes the connection immediately. He turns, narrowing his eyes again, and stares directly at Clementine.

The look he gives her rocks her to her core.

“You can do that in the Pen, can’t you?” he sneers, and Carlos slowly nods. “Then you two go back.” Carlos slowly nods again.

Suddenly, Carver turns to Vera, who is still shaking in the corner and barks, “Take them back when you’re finished. Come back to my office when you’re done with that.”

“Y-yessir.”

“And while you’re at it, find Hank and Tisha. I can’t find them but I know they’re here.”

“I-I’m not sure I know where they are…”

Carver sneers at the woman and raises an eyebrow. “The last time I couldn’t find those two,” he chortles in a dangerous tone, “They were in your bathroom, fucking on the floor. Wherever there’s one, the other is never far behind.”

He leaves after giving them all a glance that seems to tell them each something individually, but Clementine doesn’t want to think any further than the surface.

* * *

The return to the Pen is nothing short of tiring.

By the time Clementine gets into the Pen, she’s winded; so winded, in fact, that she feels as if she’s going to fall asleep on her feet or pass out. She no longer has needles in her arms, and instead, has a bandage around the area that covers the holes.  
Carlos has a small bag with the remaining insulin in it, along with several syringes and an unopened bottle of some sort of fast acting insulin. He has another pouch with the glucose monitor, lancets, and a small bottle of test strips that Vera gave him too; just the thought of having to lug around those supplies is almost as frustrating as the disease itself.

The rest of the group is overjoyed to see them. As Kenny embraces her tightly, Clementine struggles to take in a breath, small body being crushed by his. Sarah runs for her father, clearly upset and shaken, and embraces him as well. Everyone else looks concerned.

Clementine has no idea what to say. She sits down around the fire pit, desperate for a bit of warmth in the cold night, and avoids all gaze from the group.

Sarita joins her, concern glowing on the woman’s face, and she asks, “Are you all right?”

Instead of telling the truth, Clementine simply nods. She can’t bring herself to make eye contact, but what she _can_ do rather well is lie and say she’s fine. Maybe if she repeats it enough times, she _will_ manage to trick herself into being okay.

“What the hell happened?” It’s Rebecca who speaks this time, standing up from the fire pit. She and Kenny exchange looks of concern before she speaks again, “Clem – you had another seizure?”

“It was a grand mal seizure.” Carlos answers, placing the bag of supplies down on a chair. “Bonnie said she was leaving the armory with Tavia when it happened, but…”

“Look, Clem – you _never_ had that before yesterday!” Kenny stammers, moving closer to the young girl. “I ain’t never seen ya do that. You ain’t – you ain’t epileptic, are ya?”

Carlos takes Kenny’s attention away from her. He tells him she’s not epileptic as far any of them can tell, and that the seizure was caused by something completely different that had nothing to do with seizures in general – it simply was an example of the snowball effect.

“They said I have type one diabetes.”

A hush falls over the Pen. Every single one of them turn to stare at Clementine. Even Jane, who hasn’t spoken a word to any of them, looks up from her place at a table near the shelves. Kenny’s mouth is open slightly, as if in disbelief, while Rebecca’s and Sarita’s eyes widen. Sarah and Nick both look a bit confused. Mike doesn’t seem to know what to think.

No one says anything for a moment before Carlos breaks the silence, explaining what had gone down rather quickly while Clementine sits there, feeling once again ignored. She feels her face heating up, and watches Carlos pull out the remaining insulin and the syringes.

“See, this is all the more reason to get the fuck out of here while we can.” Kenny suddenly says, tone becoming more hostile. “’cause we all know what happened this mornin’, and I don’t think Carver’s exactly feeling _generous_.” His eyes widen and he looks over to Clementine with a sudden realization obvious in his face. “Hell – if we don’t get outta here, he’ll use Clem as blackmail. Deny her the medicine she needs and we’ll _have_ to do whatever the fuck he wants us to do!” 

Clementine doesn’t look up. Already, she feels tears coming to her eyes that she tries to her best to blink away. She was right about one thing – Kenny _is_ upset about her condition. And, in Kenny-fashion, he’s going to use the information any way he can. She loves him, but she can’t help the small amount of annoyance and anger that comes up.

Of course, Vera did mention that the changes in her blood glucose play a part in her mood. And Clementine knows for a fact that her blood glucose has to have risen since she disconnected from the IVs.

“So you wanna ring a _dinner bell_ for a herd of walkers to show up?” Mike suddenly demands, leaning forward to look Kenny in the eye. His expression quickly changes to one of incredulous disbelief. “How is being devoured by walkers _better_ than Carver killing us?”

“This place’ll be fuckin’ _chaos_ when that thing hits! No one’ll be payin’ any attention to us! That’s when we go, that’s our openin’ – we just gotta figure out a way to draw ‘em to us. That way, we don’t have to stay here and live under that sonuvabitch. It’s just a matter of time before he does anythin’ else – look at what he did to Reggie!” Kenny is red in the face by now, and Clementine doesn’t want any part of it. She watches as Rebecca stares him down while he’s not looking, and then meets Rebecca’s gaze.

“Your friend here wants to get us killed by lurkers before Bill can do it.” she says, raising an eyebrow in Kenny’s direction. He looks up and opens his mouth, but Rebecca cuts him off and keeps speaking in a soft but firm tone, “That’s what it _sounds_ like to me.”

Sarita meets the woman’s gaze as well and protests, “You _know_ that’s not what he’s saying. But…” She turns her head to Kenny, who is sitting to her left. “It does sound dangerous.”

A moment passes where Kenny shouts at her that _everything_ they do is dangerous, and she scolds him appropriately. Clementine doesn’t want to listen to this at all – she hates their arguing and all that’s on her mind is Luke.

Now that they’re talking about leaving, she remembers that Luke is missing in action – he has no idea where they are at all, most likely, and if they leave, they may just get further and further away from him.

When Clementine looks over to Nick, she wonders if he’s thinking the same thing. The two are best friends, after all, despite their bickering; but he has his head down, once again, and none of them can see his face.

She worries until Rebecca brings up Luke, as if reading her thoughts. When Clementine question _where on earth_ they managed to find him, Mike hastily explains that Luke flagged him and Kenny down when Troy was distracted and told them his plan: to get a radio in order to help keep an eye on the guards.

“If Luke can tell us what’s going on with the guards, then we can use that as a way to pick a good time to escape.” Rebecca continues, and Sarita seems to agree, because she begins to nod along.

“That… seems reasonable.”

She looks over to Kenny, who indignantly counters with, “Who knows when _that’ll_ be!” Then he looks to Clementine and says, “Back when we were in Georgia, there was this girl in Savannah who used to ring church bells to send walkers all over the city. We just need somethin’ really loud.”

Clementine turns to her side, where Sarah sits, and she flashes her friend a small smile as Sarita points out the volume of Carver’s PA system. Sarah looks back at her, and then her gaze flashes down to Clementine’s arm, where a two bandages are tightly wrapped around her forearm.

“Are you okay, Clem?” Sarah asks, leaning in to make sure she’s heard over the bickering from the others. “What _happened_?”

Clementine looks away for a moment, and looks over to Carlos, who has a pad of paper and a pencil in his hands. He’s scribbling furiously, reading the back of an insulin bottle’s box, and looks extremely frustrated. Sarah turns to him as well, then looks back at Clementine.

“I had another seizure.” Clementine informs her, just barely over a whisper. She thinks she may cry if she goes any louder. “Your dad and that nurse Vera tested my blood sugar.” Shrugging, she stares down at her lap and hugs her coat her to her chest. “They said I’m diabetic, but I guess there’s more than one type. I have type one, something called ‘juvenile diabetes’ – Vera said it’s something called an autoimmune disease…”

Sarah nods, looking both devastated and interested at the same time. “I’ve heard of that. My friend had it. He had to have a ton of shots and stuff every day…” She takes a hold of Clementine’s hand and asks, “ _You_ don’t have to have shots all the time, do you?”

Before Clementine can answer, she hears Rebecca’s retort to Kenny – “This isn’t a discussion about how to do it, it’s a discussion on whether it’s stupid.”

The woman gestures towards Kenny.

“And it’s still stupid! The sensible thing to do is to get Luke the radio and wait for an opening. It’ll give us time to prepare – food, supplies, medicine… look, we can’t forget about Clem.”

Clementine looks up at the mention of her name, and Rebecca once again continues on.

“Bill may try to use her as blackmail against us, but that’s better than charging into the fray with _nothing_ to keep her alive.”

It’s at this point when Clementine has had it. They’re reducing her down to nothing but the invisible illness that every single one of them knew they could use as leverage and, as much as she hated to admit it, they were right. But still, of course, they didn’t have to talk that way. She still has ears… and feelings, and –

“Rebecca, I’m right here!” bursts Clementine suddenly, standing up from her chair so quickly that she feels dizzy. Quickly, she steadies herself and them sits back down. “I’m right here! Why do you guys keep talking about me like I’m _not_?”

She receives no answers at first, then Kenny leans forward and shakes his head wildly.

“Clem, I don’t know if you’ve noticed how much of a fuckin’ precarious situation this is!” Her heart sinks as she realizes that she’s set off a chain of words she can’t stop. Her head has been running so fast and wild that she hasn’t even exactly thought of or paid much attention to the attitudes of people around her. “We’re _stuck_ here under Carver, and now you’ve got a disease that requires round the clock care, and he might just choose to use that against you if we don’t get the hell out of here!”

They can all hear Sarita tell Kenny to calm down, but he doesn’t listen. He continues on his diatribe and says, “We _gotta_ talk about it, Clementine! It ain’t somethin’ we can ignore! If you don’t get medicine, you’re gonna _fucking die_! Do you _want to die_?”

No is the answer. Clementine doesn’t want to die, except for the few moments when she does, and this is one of them. Her face feels hot, and she can hear the others scolding Kenny for speaking to her like that, Sarita somehow being both the quietest and the loudest at the same time. The same sinking feeling from earlier returns to her stomach.

It takes her a moment for her hazy, hyperglycemic mind to realize what that emotion is: embarrassment. She feels like a child – or at least a younger child; she has to remind herself daily that she is, in fact, only eleven years old – being scolded for something they should know not to do.

Clementine doesn’t cry because everyone else is there, and it would be awkward. Instead, she’s saved from the experience of having to repress tears because Carlos pulls her away and says he’s finished calculating the amount of insulin she needs.

In his hands is a thin syringe. Sarah turns around and looks curiously at the syringe for a moment, before deciding that watching Clementine get an injection isn’t how she wants to spend her evening.

(Clementine realizes this quickly, and represses the urge to point out that she doesn’t have that choice.)

“I’m going to test your blood glucose again,” Carlos tells her in a low voice once they’re away from the group. “I calculated the amount of insulin based on your last number, but glucose can be a bit unpredictable, so it needs to be tested again in about an hour or so.”

Clementine nods and wordlessly offers her pointer finger again. Her gaze wanders back to Kenny, and while part of her wants to apologize for making him irritated enough to yell, the other part of her just wants to let it go and never bring it up again.

When the glucose monitor beeps, it says **824**  and then another alert that she’s hyperglycemic. The number is slightly above what the last measurement was, but she doesn’t say anything, and instead begins to look over to the syringe in Carlos’ hand.

“Where does the needle go?”

The needle ends up in her stomach. The only place with enough tissue to be pinched long enough to have an injection is the far right of her stomach, and though the injection doesn’t exactly hurt, Clementine would never say that it isn’t terrifying.

Asking how many shots she needed in a day is a question which she assumes the answer for will be ‘one’. Instead, she leaves that conversation with a new disdain for needles that she hadn’t had before and a slightly nauseous feeling in the pit of her stomach. She also leaves the conversation with the knowledge that her dog bite may take a lot longer than she thought to heal, and that only makes her more nauseous.

Still, at the same time, a sick hunger gnaws at her insides, and it seems like forever before Bonnie enters the Pen with several cans of soup and vegetables, acting as if she _hadn’t_ heard the discussion about stealing a radio. Clementine supposes it’s yet another way of hers of apologizing.

The ginger haired woman leaves the Pen without saying a large amount, and she doesn’t look Clementine in the eye. Instead of complaining, Clementine simply feels grateful that she doesn’t have to speak to anyone else.

She takes the blood glucose monitor before taking a can from the basket Bonnie left, and pulls the pen off of the side. It feels large in her hands; thick. Clementine plays around with the button on it for a moment before she carefully pulls the lid off, exposing a sharp, metal lancet that looks to be fresh.  
Vera said that technically, the lancets were supposed to be changed after every use, but that it isn’t exactly a big deal if she doesn’t change it.

Capping the pen, Clementine shakily moves the tip to the side of her finger and pushes down once. There’s a click. She pushes down harder a second time, and feels the tip pierce her skin. It hurts less on the side of her finger than on the pad.

The blood forms differently. Instead of forming a dot, it forms a spot. Still, there’s enough blood to test it. Carefully, Clementine moves the test strip inside of the monitor onto the blood, and takes the sample immediately. It beeps again.

 **792** and a warning of hyperglycemia.

She doesn’t care about the warning because she knows what’s wrong, but _dear God_ is she grateful that the insulin is working.


	2. Chapter 2

Clementine doesn’t remember the equation for calculating how much insulin she needs, and for the record, neither does Carlos, who claims Vera managed to find the formula on the back of an empty insulin box and wrote it down on the pad of paper. The formula varies slightly, based on the type of insulin, but Clementine has a nasty yet proud feeling she’ll manage to memorize it soon.

Apparently, there’s multiple types of the same formula however, which just makes her internally groan. They’re based on multiple things – the type of insulin, the brand, the ratio, the amount of carbohydrates eaten… it’s a lot.

By the end of trying to calculate it all, Clementine remembers exactly why she hated mathematics so much back in school. Even Carlos looks like he’s resisting the urge to toss the pad of paper across the room in a fit of rage.  
But Clementine just shakes her head. She and numbers don’t get along – she supposed the blood glucose could be added to the list of numbers she doesn’t get along with, too. And the grams of carbohydrates read on the back of the nutritional information for the chicken soup she’s already eaten.

By the end of it, she just wants to go to sleep because her head hurts again and she wants this horrible day to end. But of course, something inevitably comes up.

The rest of the group discusses the plans to leave through dinner, and when Rebecca asks exactly how they’re going to get through a herd of walkers undetected, Jane finally seems to be making effort to be a part of the group.

“I do it all the time, actually.”

Silence, until Mike drops his cream of beef soup and gawks, then says, “The first words I ever hear you say, and it’s just some crazy, stupid shit.”

“Oh, hush!” Sarita says quietly. She looks up at Jane through wide eyes and asks, “What do you mean?”

Jane shrugs, as if she’s talking about her opinion of the weather outside.  
“When you cover yourself in their smell – rub the walker guts all over you – they can’t tell you from one of them.”

Everyone, with the exception of Clementine, stares at her as if she has two heads.

“Now I dunno who’s crazier.”

“What?”

“Why would you even think to –?”

“Trust me, I’ve walked through herds before. It works. You just have to keep calm and make sure you’re good and covered.”

Clementine rubs her arm and puts down the plastic spoon she’s eating her soup with. Quietly, she looks over to Kenny and admits, “I’ve done that before. Lee figured it out back in Savannah. That’s how we got out of the Marsh House.” It’s how she left Savannah, as well, and it’s how she nearly blew her cover when she suddenly found herself face-to-face with the reanimated corpses of her parents.

Kenny puts down his spoon as well. They both look and realize that Clementine was heard, despite how quiet she was; apparently deciding to draw attention, he replies in what seems to be genuine awe, “Holy shit. Good one, Lee.”

Suddenly, he stands, abandoning his mixed vegetables, and proclaims, “All right – what’re we waitin’ for? Let’s get that stupid radio!”

“We still have to find a way to get in the stockroom.” Rebecca points out, raising an eyebrow.

Jane peeps up almost immediately. “I’ve got a plan for that too.” She smiles and runs a hand through her short brown hair, then her gaze turns to Clementine. “Come on, kid. I’m gonna need your help. We need to use the winch; she can climb up from there.”

It takes Clementine a moment to realize what Jane’s insinuating; she’s still a bit dazed, though whether it’s from the seizure, the hyperglycemia, or the mathematics isn’t clear. Kenny figures it out before she does, however.

“Wait, wait, are you sayin’ -?” Kenny’s expression darkens, and though he and Jane seemed to be getting along civilly, Clementine can immediately tell that this is where he draws the line. And part of her actually disagrees with him; she wants to help get the radio. But the other half agrees. For all they know, something else could happen. That, and she’s tired and hasn’t slept well for about two years. “Oh hell no. I ain’t sendin’ her in there.”

For a moment, Jane seems willing to take his refusal with a grain of salt and completely ignore him, but then she ponders aloud, “Well… why not?”

It’s Rebecca who speaks this time, and she scoffs in what seems to almost be disbelief.  
“Did you not notice her stabbing her finger on the giant, black pen?”

“I heard you _talking_ about diabetes.” Jane admits, her dirt covered cheeks reddening. She looks over to Clementine, who shrugs. She isn’t sure how else to respond to the woman’s expression. “I didn’t… really realize you were talking about _her_. You’re diabetic, kid?”

“I just found out today.”

It takes less than two minutes before Jane, uncaringly, shrugs off the confrontation and the revelation from Clementine, and decides to simply get the radio herself, which takes Clementine by surprise quite quickly.  
Within a few minutes, Jane is up on the roof and out of sight.

Deciding not to worry about the radios, Clementine slips away back to the shelves, where a blanket and a pillow lay. She grabs the glucose monitor and the pen from the table and lays down on her own shelf.

Kenny meets her there a moment later. He sits on the bunk that he and Sarita share, and whispers, “Clem.”

Clementine looks up, then turns to face him.

“I just wanted to tell ya I’m sorry for yellin’ at you.” He grimaces, as though re-experiencing his own shouting. Clementine perks up and begins an attempt to sit up to speak to him. Her body disagrees. “And I’m so sorry about what happened today.”

“It’s not your fault.” She covers her mouth as she yawns. “Don’t worry about me, Kenny.”

Kenny chuckles, leans over, and runs a hand through her thick, dark hair.  
“How am I supposed to do that, darlin’? You give me every reason to.”

For a moment, she almost instinctively apologizes as he moves over to sit on her bunk. Instead, Clementine simply hugs her pillow and looks up to face her friend.  
Sarita makes her way over to hers and Kenny’s bunk; she gazes over to Clementine with an expression that she can’t make out, but hopes it’s a positive one, and then lays down.

“I… wouldn’t sit there if I were you.”

“Why’s that?”

Clementine feels heat come to her cheeks. For a moment, she considers telling Kenny about how she’s thrown up during the night so many times, and the one time she woke up having wet the bed, but instead she just mumbles, “Never mind.” and leaves it at that.

They’re both silent for several minutes before Kenny begins to quietly talk about his deceased son. Clementine remembers the hyperactive boy fondly before his demise from a walker bite, but part of her doesn’t want to think about her friend. It’s too painful.

“Long day tomorrow, Clem.” Kenny whispers. “And uh, Doc over there told me to tell you that you gotta take some kind of long actin’ insulin before you go to sleep. Somethin’ about keepin’ your blood sugar from _skyrocketing_ durin’ the night.”

Clementine represses the urge to bang her head against the shelf, and instead drags her exhausted body out of bed.

* * *

 Looking back, Clementine thinks that they should have realized the radio plan wouldn’t work.

That morning, she wakes up feeling groggy, but not sleep deprived. She only woke up twice during the night, and she had hardly any dreams that would keep her awake anyway. Her body is pained, but she ignores it because she’s just been nudged in the ribs by Troy’s boot, and she’s quite sure she may have slept on top of the glucose monitor.

They’re given small breakfast first; it’s mostly things like stale crackers and a single fruit cup, and Carver makes things extra difficult by not providing the boxes the food came in.

Carlos loads a syringe with the standard insulin that Vera began giving Clementine yesterday, estimating the amount that needs to go in if she eats a few of the crackers and a fruit cup.  
Her fasting blood glucose is **680** , along with a warning of hyperglycemia. Her levels are going down, albeit slowly, but they’re still going down.

Clementine looks away when Carlos gives her an injection in her lower stomach. She’s lost count of how many times she’s been stabbed with a needle or lancet, and she’s already quite tired of dealing with it.

When Sarita asks how she feels, Clementine once again replies that she’s fine and nothing is wrong and everything is dandy. She wonders to herself if Sarita actually believes this and guesses that the answer is ‘no’, but she can’t bring herself to actually ask this. She’s met with a small pat on the shoulder that she assumes is an attempt to comfort her.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t calm her nerves at all because it’s now her job to get the radio to Luke.

* * *

 When she finally sees Luke, it’s when he’s on his backside in the middle of the Pen, being tended to by Carlos, with bruises covering his face and blood tricking down his chin.

Clementine can’t help it. She runs for Luke, so full of relief to just see him alive. He shouts her name as she practically jumps on him just as he shouts, “Clem!” She wraps her arms around him, and had Carver not smacked her across the back of her head, she wouldn’t have let go.

Carver is on another one of his rants again, this one about being repaid for his trust with treachery and deceit.

He holds up the radio that was left in the Pen and shouts, “Whatever you were planning is over. It’s done. You can’t just _run_ from your problems. You can’t just up and leave when it gets tough – ‘cause there’s nowhere else you can go where it ain’t.” He faces Clementine, and in a dangerous tone, he continues with, “Tough is all we got now. Get it through your fuckin’ skulls!”

Luke stares up at the man with potent glare, though he looks unable to move.

“Luke here, he can’t help you now… you gotta help yourselves. You gotta help me find the strength to forgive you.”

If she were to be honest, Clementine hardly has the strength to stand, now that she’s back in line and the relief period of finding Luke has worn off. In one of her pockets is the glucose monitor, which she suspects would tell her that her blood sugar is high again, and in the other is the twin radio that Carver is looking for.

So no, she does not have the strength to help Carver do anything.

“Now, you can start by telling me where the other one is.”

Clementine doesn’t want to die, except for during moments like this when she’s so terrified of the consequences of living that she doesn’t think she can stand it. She already has her arms directly at her sides when she grabs onto the bottom of her jacket. The pockets are both already puffed out; one by the glucose monitor, the other by the radio. She dearly hopes that Carver can’t tell which is which.

“Now, I’m gonna count to three. If that radio ain’t in my hand by then, we’ll have to make things more difficult. One!”

Deep inside, Clementine knows what she has to do. But right as she opens her mouth to speak is when Kenny snatches the radio from her pocket and shouts, “I got it right here.” He waves it around in the air.

Carver grimaces and holds his hand out expectantly.

Sarita approaches Kenny before he walks out towards the man, but he brushes her off, and instead deposits the radio straight into Carver’s hand, babbling about how he “didn’t know what he was thinking”.

That’s when Carver completely skips ‘two’ and slowly says, “Three.”

The last thing Clementine hears is Kenny chuckle darkly and reply with, “Heh. Fucker.”

The next thing any of them know, Kenny’s on the ground and Carver hits him – over and over with the radio. Screaming breaks out, and Clementine realizes it’s her own and Sarita’s mixed together.

Carlos grabs Sarita around the waist just as she tries to run towards Kenny, but Clementine almost makes it before Luke smacks himself into her, almost like some sort of protective shield, and wraps himself around her, trying to push her back with all of his might.

And Clementine can’t breathe. She tries in vain to push against Luke – she _has to do something_ because Kenny’s going to die if she doesn’t do something and _oh God_ Carver’s going to kill him. Carver’s going to beat him _senseless_.

She can feel her tears coursing down her thin face as Luke’s words are lost in her screaming of Kenny’s name. Her throat feels like brambles and her voice breaks in the middle of screaming his name. Helpless panic rises up inside of her, but Luke _isn’t_ _listening_.

“Clem – Goddammit, don’t look!” Luke shouts, trying his hardest to turn Clementine around so that she isn’t facing the atrocity, but it’s in vain because _she isn’t moving_. She can’t stop herself. And when Luke grabs her wrists, she nearly punches him in his already bruised face.

And when Bonnie runs into the Pen, screaming at the top of her lungs at Carver to _Stop! There’s been a breach!_ Clementine still can’t stop herself.

She’s flat out crying now, so hard that she chokes on her own bawling. And Luke’s engulfed her in a bone crushing hug in an attempt to calm her down, but it isn’t working.

Carver lets Kenny fall to the ground, limp, and he walks off, passing Bonnie, shouting that they aren’t allowed food that night as punishment. Clementine thinks that this is the perfect punishment because she could vomit right now, she’s crying so hard.

It’s Sarita who reaches Kenny first. She also has tears streaming down her face as she runs to him and falls down on her knees trying to see if he’s even _alive_. Carlos follows her closely, and all Clementine does is thrash around against Luke, barely able to take in another breath.

“Clementine – Clem, look at me!” Luke lets go off her wrists and takes a hold of her shoulders, as if he’s forcing her to look at him instead of Kenny.  
Of course, she can’t exactly see much in front of her through tear filled eyes. She stops squirming and does her best to force her blurred, shaking gaze to face Luke’s eyes. But she can’t – her mind is a running a mile a second as she instinctively focuses on watching Kenny’s restricted movements.

When Sarita and Carlos pull him up, he looks straight over to Clementine.

He looks just like a walker.

Bonnie comes towards them as Luke attempts to pull Clementine’s gaze away from the beaten man. He once again tries forcing Clementine to face him, saying, “You gotta _breathe_ , Clem – Carlos is gonna fix ‘im, but you’re gonna hurt yourself – it’s gonna be all right – it’s gonna be _fine_ - _”_

By now there’s nothing Clementine can do. She’s in so much pain as it is. She knows Kenny is worse shape, and just as soon as she looks up to see him being half-dragged, half-carried away, she lets out a wail again. She looks down at her shoes, not wanting to meet Luke’s eyes, but she feels him trying to hug her again.

She isn’t dying. She isn’t the one who was just beaten. She _shouldn’t be crying_ – goddammit, _why is she crying_? Kenny is the one who’s been hurt. The urge to smack herself across the face is strong. Instead, she gives up and let’s Luke take his embrace, her tired body collapsing against him.

Clementine isn’t the only one in tears. Sarah’s pressed against Rebecca, looking as if she may faint. She’s covered her face, unwilling to see Kenny and the blood spilled across the concrete slabs below.

“Do your best with him, Carlos.” Bonnie’s voice says suddenly; she lays a hand on Clementine’s shoulder. “You need to get him ready to move… ‘cause we’re leavin’ tonight.”

Every single person in the room, barring Kenny, looks up, and Bonnie stares them down with an almost completely emotionless stare.

“We’re leavin’ tonight.”

* * *

 Clementine doesn’t mean to pace. She simply can’t bring herself to sit down with the amount of fear coursing through her veins. In her trembling hands, she holds the pen to the glucose monitor, which she’s removed the cap from.

It has to be a new nervous tick, she thinks. The cap to the pen isn’t supposed to be removed except to change the lancet, but the noise and the repeated motion of pushing the cap on and off are the only thing she has to self-soothe. Her eyes trace the metal lancet over and over, and more than once, she absentmindedly runs her finger over the tip, drawing a tiny amount of blood that she wipes away easily.

She’s hungry. A sick feeling sits in her stomach as dizziness comes and goes. Carlos is busy with Kenny, so that means no insulin at the moment – not that she even wants any of it to begin with.

 _I don’t deserve it_. _It’s my fault…_

Kenny made the choice to do pull the radio from Clementine, she knows this. But she thinks to herself that if only she had been faster, if only she had spoken up before – maybe if only she had gotten to Luke before Carver did, they wouldn’t have even been in that situation.

The lancet pierces her thumb briefly. Clementine can’t even bring herself to react. It barely hurts; it’s more like the tiniest sting she can think of. She pokes her thumb again, this time focusing all of her thoughts on Carver.

A small set of shoulders tremble as Clementine thinks of him again. She pushes the lancet into her middle finger this time, then rakes it slowly across her skin in anger.

Sarita’s sobs don’t take her by surprise. The woman has Rebecca’s arm around her shoulders, her face in her hands, and she’s hunched over. Clementine doesn’t mean to stare. Her entire body feels like ice; all she wants to do is run over to Sarita and hug her and tell her to please stop crying because it’s okay and maybe Carlos will manage to keep Kenny alive –

Of course, she wouldn’t want someone giving her false hope like that. False hope is the worst thing that Clementine can give because you always feel let down and you always feel as if you’ve been lied to.

A minute passes before she feels a presence behind her. When she feels a hand on her shoulder, Clementine turns her head only slightly to see Rebecca standing closely behind her, a frown apparent on her face.

“Clem?” she asks in a hoarse whisper, “How’re you doing?”

Clementine doesn’t answer for a moment. Briefly, she’s scared that if she speaks, she may completely dissolve into hysterical tears again.

Briefly, she wants to punch herself in the face for having thoughts like that again – because no one, except for Carver, should have to walk on eggshells in order to have a conversation with her. Of course, there’s the subject matter.

Part of her wants to sarcastically turn to her friend and say, _Yeah, I’m perfectly fine and peachy and I’m not dying inside and out, and Kenny’s absolutely fine. How’re you, Rebecca?_

But she keeps this inside of her head instead and replies with a shrug. It’s the same kind of shrug she gave to Reggie, back when they first got to Howe’s. She can’t bring herself to even turn around; part of it, she believes, is the shame. A bowed head is all that Rebecca is met with, besides the shrug, and that bowed head isn’t even facing her.

There’s a small click as Clementine places the cap to the pen back on, and deposits it back into its holder on the side of the glucose monitor. She slowly takes in a shaking breath and turn to face Rebecca. Her gaze stays down as she places the glucose monitor back in her pocket and wipes away the dried blood on her hands.

Rebecca’s visible reaction is only widening her tired eyes slightly, and just barely cocking her head to her right. Clementine feels cold and coarse already, realizing that what Rebecca is looking for is a verbal response, and begins to speak in a whisper.

“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”

Guilt claws at her chest. Inside, she knows she’s being stubborn, but on the other hand, it’s easier to just lie through her teeth and tell Rebecca that she’s completely fine, considering the circumstances, rather than giving her something else to worry about, and then having to talk about her problems. No way in Hell did Clementine want to have this kind of conversation out in the open, in front of Rebecca, and in front of the rest of the group.

They have already seen her cry. They know deeply personal medical details on her. They have watched her have to be restrained by Luke while screaming at the top of her lungs. Already, if there’s a straw that has or is in the process of breaking the camel’s back, it’s these. And then having this kind of conversation with Rebecca is potentially comparable to dancing on that camel’s grave.

Removing her hand from Clementine’s shoulder, Rebecca lets out a sigh. Clementine tenses her shoulders almost instinctively. Legs feeling frozen to the spot, she can’t bring herself to turn around and face anyone in the group yet. Even Rebecca. She wonders that if she does turn to face the woman, Rebecca will see that _nothing’s wrong_ and leave her alone.

The other part of her, like a little, truthful demon whispering in her ear tells her otherwise. She wants nothing more than comfort. Truthfully, she does. Long gone are the days when she could go to Lee, or her parents, or even Christa of all people for a comforting hug and a reassurance that everything would be okay.

Suddenly, she turns. For a moment, Clementine isn’t even sure what she’s doing and she prepares to walk right past Rebecca. Maybe she can go distract Sarah by asking her to sum up _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ , or maybe she can comfort Sarita, or even check on Kenny to see if he’s still breathing. But then Rebecca looks down to her, their gazes locking and Clementine can feel the tears starting right back up.

“… Is he…?” She can’t get her entire sentence out before she feels tears collecting on her eyelashes. Trying her best to blink them away, she doesn’t look up at Rebecca, and instead looks past her, towards Kenny’s lifeless looking body. “… I… don’t worry about me. Worry about _him_.”

Rebecca takes a delicate hold of her chin and forces Clementine to meet her eyes. Clementine instinctively wants to look away; she can barely maintain the eye contact at all.

“You’re not ‘ _fine’,_ Clem.” She wants to protest that she is and that Rebecca’s just overreacting, but she can’t even get through Rebecca’s next sentence before she has to turn around to hide her face. “What did you do to your hand?” It’s a stupid reason to start crying in her opinion, but she can’t change what’s already happening.

Clementine’s hiding her face now, unable to answer verbally. She turns to have her back facing Rebecca and inches her hand up to her eyes in an attempt to wipe them dry. A small sniff escapes her grasp; part of her feels relief from the pressure that’s built up inside of her. The other part of her screams to _stop_. She knows Rebecca doesn’t need to know. The woman isn’t entitled to an answer.

When Clementine places her hand up to cover her mouth, it’s because she feels pain in her chest as her stomach is flopping around. A watery feeling finds its home in her cheeks. At first, she’s afraid of vomiting, and when she tries to make this apparent, she can’t stop.

Everything is wrong. Everything is screwed. People have already died because of her, Kenny is probably going to die because of her, she’s probably going to die soon, and she’s just pushed it down. She’s told herself so many times that she doesn’t need to cry because crying is for quitters and crying solves nothing – but _goddammit_ , Clementine already has slow, silent tears coursing their way down her face and once she’s started, she can’t stop.

When she tries to speak, her voice comes out wracked with squeaking sobs that she can’t control. Rebecca must be judging her, she thinks at first until the woman in question tries to pull her into a hug. Clementine nearly hits her when she tries to do this. She doesn’t want to be hugged at first – she wants no one to see her like this. She wants to stop crying and pretend none of this emotional stuff ever happened and that Rebecca didn’t see anything.

She’s missed at least half of her insulin injections by now, simply because of how long Carlos has been working on Kenny and how long she’s been separated from the group. High blood sugar isn’t helping her already unstable emotions.

What feels like vomit rises up in her throat. The last thing she wants to do is vomit on Rebecca, but it quickly goes back down. The severe nausea doesn’t change; Clementine is shaking now, half because of the missed insulin doses and nausea, and half because how hard she’s trying to hold back the tears that just keep flowing.

Rebecca doesn’t complain, but she doesn’t let go either. Clementine squirms in her arms just as she did with Luke; she wants to run and hide so that no one has to see because she can’t take their pity. And, of course, she can’t let them see her vulnerable. She’s already vulnerable enough as it is, physically, but emotional vulnerability is something completely different.

She always used to tell herself that she couldn’t weigh down the groups she was a part of.  While with Christa, she didn’t weigh her down. After Lee, she knows it’s an easy choice between not showing vulnerability to anyone and death. Between those, she’ll take stoicism.

Clementine doesn’t want to die. In her head, that’s exactly what the vulnerability equals – being taken advantage of. Part of her waits for Rebecca to go off on a diatribe and tell her to stop being pathetic and that she has no reason to cry.

The other part of her feels weirdly comforted. Clementine doesn’t know if she likes that or not.

Even so, she doesn’t answer the question about her hand. She knows she shouldn’t have been scraping the lancet across her fingers the way she was; any cuts she manages to get take a lot longer to heal than normally now.

Her trembling hands wrap around Rebecca and she holds on for dear life.

* * *

 Bonnie appears to them not too much later, and her presence immediately attracts Luke and Mike, who make their way to the gate.

Clementine’s eyes are red and puffy. No one says anything about the previous outburst, including Rebecca, and Sarah hugs her tightly. Carlos steps away from Kenny very briefly and hands off a syringe that he already placed insulin in. A nasty feeling drops into Clementine’s stomach when she realizes that he didn’t calculate it at all, and instead loaded the same amount as the last injection.

She does it herself. She steps off to the side, her hand trembling, and pricks her finger again. Her heart hammers when she sees **837** pop up alongside yet another warning of hyperglycemia. It’s now higher than it was when she had her second seizure and for a moment, she forgets to breathe.

When she gives herself the injection the same way Carlos did before, she faces away from the others. Embarrassment and self-consciousness tug at her thoughts as she notices a few of the others are staring. Jane looks up from her sleeping spot, wordlessly, and stares the most as Clementine grips a bit of the remaining tissue and meat covering her lower stomach.

Carefully, she pinches the tissue and pushes the needle into her skin. Just the same as the other times, it pinches but it doesn’t hurt. It’s no more painful than the average shot, and Clementine has never exactly been scared of needles anyway.

Plunging the insulin is a painstaking process that she does at a moderate pace. Watching the clear liquid like a hawk, she shakily tries to keep her thumb on the plunger, but of course, it’s the same one she stabbed with the lancet pen. Her hands are already slick with sweat. 

It takes her several seconds to withdraw the needle without much pain, and it doesn’t leave more than a small track-mark on her stomach along with all the other ones from earlier. Still, Clementine can’t face the rest of the group for over a minute. Her emotional outburst may be over, but the emotions surrounding it aren’t.

When Luke and Mike return back to the campfire, Clementine can tell immediately that something is wrong. Luke holds a scowl as he wipes away the blood that trickles out of his mouth, and he shoots Mike a glance that Clementine can only think of as some sort of glare.

“What did she say?” asks Rebecca, turning her full attention to the two men. Her tone is a cross between anxious and precaution.

A half-smile appears on Mike’s face as he turns to them and answers, “She said she can get us out of the Pen if we can get the PA system working. Second she hears it, she’ll run over and spring us.”

When she first hears this, a small amount of shock courses through Clementine as she thinks of Bonnie, who seemed to be too cowardly to go up against Carver, springing them lose and helping them escape. Personal development, she thinks to herself. Bonnie’s realized by now how much of a monster Carver is… and maybe she had realized it before, but seeing Kenny being beaten within an inch of his life is inspiration for bravery, and going up against Carver. Something like that, Clementine thinks.

“That’s great!” Rebecca exclaims, eyes lighting up.

“It’s _not_ great.” Luke’s voice is low and it takes him a moment before he meets their eyes. A dark scowl crosses his face as he stares up at Rebecca.

“What are you talking about?”

“Look –” His eyebrows knit together as he clenches his hands together, and then his voice breaks, “I _know_ this is my fault – I-I _know_ , I was hungry, I got reckless tryin’ t’steal some food and I got caught…”

Clementine bites the inside of her lip and cuts him off before he can finish, “We – _can’t_ stay here! We _can’t_!”

Rebecca verbally agrees, and that’s when she brings up Alvin, who they learn is currently tied to a chair in Carver’s makeshift office. Clementine’s stomach does a flip when she hears this, and part of her remembers how Carver told Vera to ‘meet him in his office’. She wonders if Vera is suffering the same fate as Alvin…

“Look, I hear what you’re sayin’ but it’s _risky_!” Luke replies, his voice progressing to a stage-whisper. Nick chimes in as well, which feels like the first time in forever that they’ve heard him speak. Wring her hands together, Clementine thinks to herself if staying or leaving is more risky.

Mike chimes in as well, and the four of them go back and forth for a moment before Luke cuts the other three off, and points to Kenny.

“Yeah, well we’re dealing with a guy _beat to shit_ , Sarita in no shape to do _anything_ , I’m a _goddamn_ mess, and we got a child with a chronic illness. Nothin’ about that is fine! Look, we should rest up. Okay? We should bide our time. And we should wait for an openi-” Luke suddenly trails off into coughing and grabs a hold of his ribs as he tries to finish his sentence.

Mike tilts his head and replies, “Bonnie’s agreeing to help us _tonight_.”

“And that doesn’t mean she can’t do it on some _other_ night!”

It’s Nick who speaks this time. He first looks over to Clementine, then at Rebecca, and then back to Luke and Mike before agreeing, “I don’t know, guys. Luke’s makin’ sense. Maybe we _should_ wait.”

Rebecca shakes her head, “We’re _not_ waiting.” she insists, scowling.

“There ain’t nothing out there, guys.” Luke’s tone is a split between irritation and devastation. His eyes widen and he opens his mouth slightly. “Trust me, I _looked_. There’s no food, no supplies – they picked everythin’ clean!” He avoids there gaze for a moment before looking up to Rebecca. “We need supplies for your baby. And we need insulin for Clem. And Kenny…” Luke looks across the Pen, where Carlos is still tending to Kenny.

Carlos makes his way over just then. He first asks Clementine if she gave herself the injection. She replies positively, but doesn’t look up. Instead, the first thing she can think of to say is, “How’s Kenny?”

She sounds a lot more anxious than she intends. The emotions aren’t gone yet.

Sarita’s head also shoots up instinctively. Her eyes are also red and tear-laden, tear tracks find finding their home on her reddened cheeks.

Kenny is on his back on Rebecca’s cot. His arm is on his chest, much like Clementine had held hers in the medical bay.

For the first time in a long time, he looks almost peaceful.

* * *

 It’s miraculous when Kenny stands up and walks in an almost straight line towards him. Clementine’s heart feels as if it’s going to explode from her chest when she sees him, and Sarita immediately dissolves into tears again.

They both mob him, Clementine with tears in her eyes, Sarita crying against her partner.

Kenny’s eye is gone. Bloody bandages cover what’s left of it, and deep scratches on his nose and his lip stay apparent. The cheek opposite to his eye is busted. His hoarse voice somehow speaks louder than anything else going on at that moment and as they all converse with him, Clementine can’t believe it.

He’s alive. He’s alive and he’s going to make it and he’s not going to die because he’s alive and _he’s standing right in front of her in the flesh_. He’s speaking. He’s breathing. She wants to cry again but she holds it in because she knows it would just upset him.

When he wraps his arms around her, Clementine doesn’t want to him to let go. She leans her face into his jacket. He smells like sweat and blood, somehow still better than insulin, and the smell is instantly calming.

“That wasn’t… your fault, okay?” Kenny whispers in her ear. Clementine doesn’t answer. She’s too caught up in the sheer relief and the weight lifted off of her shoulders. “So don’t go blamin’ yourself for that… it’s all right.”

There’s silence for a moment, before Luke awkwardly says, “All right… well then, what now?”

“We get the hell out of here.” Kenny replies simply.

“Like, now-now?” Luke responds, squinting. It seems like a genuine question, but at the same time, he receives glances from every one of them.

The narrowed gaze from Kenny and the simple _Yes_ from Rebecca tell it all.


	3. Chapter 3

The plan is to meet at Parker’s Run, a tourist trap and Civil War site a few miles north of Howe’s Hardware after setting off the PA system in Carver’s office.

Jane volunteers this time, instead of volunteering Clementine because it’s Kenny who flat out shuts her down before she even speaks of the idea for Clementine to set off the system. They all know asking Sarah to do it is out of the question, and Jane herself is the lightest out of the adults.

The winch held her last time, so all that they can do is hope and pray that it holds her this time. Quickly, Mike boosts her up, and just like with the radios, she’s up and gone in a heartbeat.

The only supplies they have are the medical supplies and the clothes on their backs. Carlos gathers up the medical supplies, barring the glucose monitor that Clementine simply tucks into the pocket of her jacket.

Looking back, Clementine feels like she should have known something would have gone wrong. When the PA system turns on, they all know they have to run. Tensions run high between every single person in the Pen, and Clementine can’t help but feel limp on her feet.

Bonnie gets to them first. When she throws open the shutter door, Clementine grabs a hold of Kenny’s hand to keep from falling behind and the sheer terror and excitement of finally being _free_ feels like too much.

Kenny drags her along and it’s a blur to her. She doesn’t remember half of it, just putting one foot in front of the other because if she stops, she’ll never start again. She’s not the only one; Rebecca looks close to fainting, and her gaze continuously shoots to Carver’s office.

Alvin is dead. They learn this when Jane jumps on Carver’s back from a shelf in the stockroom, and she delivers her sympathies to Rebecca.

Carver is dead. They watch this as Luke shoots him twice the knee in the stockroom and Kenny’s hands brush up against a crowbar.

Clementine doesn’t blink the entire time that she watches Kenny’s continuous blows to the man’s head and he doesn’t stop. He hits – over and over and over until nothing is left of Carver’s face but pulp.

Sarita tries to pull her away, and when she can’t, she leaves the stockroom with Carlos and Sarah.

Luke’s gaze lingers on Clementine for longer than she’s comfortable for, when she finally breaks her eye contact with Carver’s mangled, blood smile that’s been beaten into a pulp, she looks up to meet Luke’s eyes.

His lips are just barely parted, and his eyes stay widened as she stares back at him. They share the same expression for a moment before Clementine turns.

She feels disconnected to her body. For a moment, she stops in her tracks, listening for any of that soft music that’s a telltale sign that she’s about to seize. But she hears absolutely nothing, except Kenny’s labored breathing, and Rebecca soft, heartbreaking whimpers and her husband’s name.  
Clementine rubs her temples as she snatches a hatchet up from off the ground of the stockroom. Every thought brings back the smashed skull. Every thought brings back the blood as it splattered the concrete and the noise that the skull made when it finally split and the _smile_ Carver had on his face. Because he made them drop down to his level. And he died happy. She can’t stop the horrific images that flash across her vision.

The one thing she can’t run from is her own mind.

* * *

 Outside of Howe’s is entropy.

Walkers are fast approaching, and the first thing Clementine does is raise the hatchet above her head and smash it as hard as she can into the skull of the nearest walker.

Luke surveys the area while Jane slices open another walker and begins to cover her face and clothing. The PA system plays automated messages about above ground pools and Fourth of July sales while simultaneously making horrible puns with the name “Howe’s”.

Clementine’s looks up over to Kenny, who’s face already is covered in Carver’s blood. He’s covered enough, she thinks, at least on his face.

She hands the hatchet over to Carlos, who slices open the walker at their feet. Sarah’s expression quite clearly tells everyone, the walkers included, that she is absolutely petrified. Carlos doesn’t look extremely impressed either, and pulls a face as he opens the walker’s abdomen. Clementine supposes this is why he became a doctor, not a coroner.

Her heart is hammering. The last time she was in a herd was just after Lee’s death. And at that same time was the last time she saw the faces that she formerly called Mom and Dad. Trying to push it away, she kneels down to the walker and shoves her bare hands into the bloodied flesh, then begins to rub the transferred blood all over her clothes.

Sarah’s covered as well, albeit reluctantly, and she reaches over for Clementine’s hand. Clementine looks up and squeezes her hand tightly. This is life or death, they both know, and a large majority of Clementine is terrified that if she lets go of Sarah’s hand, it may just end in both of their deaths.

“ _What in the actual fuck is goin’ on here_?”

Clementine’s heart sinks. The voice belongs to Troy.

“What _is_ this sick shit? Someone say somethin’ before I start – HEY!”

Luke has bent down to grab the gun on the ground, which Troy quickly catches onto. He points his own gun straight at Luke’s face and shouts, “Don’t you even _think_ about it, motherfucker – I WILL END YOU!”

Jane stands from her position on the ground. Her lips curve a small smile as she shifts her gaze to Troy and holds her gun slightly behind her thigh.

“Troy,” she says gently, inching her way towards him. “Troy, we talked about this.”

Troy backs up, his fists growing white as he clutches his gun tighter. He demands loudly, “What? What’re _you talking about_?”

“I told you… I wanted to get out. You said you’d help. Then I’d help.”

Clementine turns and feels fear filling her gut (or maybe it’s just all that water she drank earlier) as she watches the walkers coming closer and closer to the edge of the hardware store. If Jane has a plan, then Clementine sure as hell hopes she knows what she’s doing.

“I thought you meant ‘get out of the Pen’! Not WHATEVER THE FUCK THIS SHIT IS!”

“I did… but now we can leave.” Jane replies sweetly. She gently reaches out physically to Troy, and Clementine dearly hopes she doesn’t mean what she says next. “You can come with us, Troy.”

By now, she’s in front of him, and he’s clearly got a loose grip on his gun. A look of surprise crosses his face. Clementine has a feeling that Jane has Troy exactly where she wants him, and that this is all part of some kind of seductive ruse.

And it works, because Troy lowers his gun before saying quietly, “Oh… where would we go?”

“Away from here. Together.”

And Troy smiles. The most genuine smile Clementine has actually seen from him, and a part of her feels bad because she knows that if Jane actually does try to bring Troy along, there’s no way anyone else with go for it.

“Man, you smell really bad. You gotta get a bath before we-ARGH!”

A gunshot rings out. Clementine instinctively tries to cover her ears as they ring high pitched, and Troy’s screaming progresses into agonized words. He grabs his crotch as blood spurts from it force, and he falls to his knees, and then to the ground.

“ _YOU SHOT MY DICK OFF!”_

Every male in the group visibly cringes, but Jane walks away from Troy looking rather pleased with herself.

And so, with everyone now accounted for and covered, they charge into the fray with nothing but blood covering every inch of them, a few medical supplies, and a few scattered weapons.

Clementine shoots up a silent prayer for not only herself but for everyone else.

* * *

 The first one to go is Sarita.

Her screams pierce the night out of almost nowhere. Just a few feet ahead, she’s been detected and a walker grabs her by the arm. Its razor sharp teeth sink into her wrist before Kenny can pull her away.

There’s screaming from both of them and Clementine stops in her tracks. She can’t move. She feels a walker brush up against her back, but it keeps going, not detecting her at. Carlos wraps one arm around Sarah and covers her mouth in his attempt to physically keep her quiet and keep her moving.

Clementine has the same reaction except that she can’t scream. It feels like slow motion as she hears Kenny screaming her name, for her help, she hears Bonnie shouting that Clementine isn’t going to move, and she hears the gunshots that Bonnie and Luke are shooting.

Kenny isn’t fast enough. Even more walkers take down Sarita just a moment later. His screaming is agonized, but hearing him shrieking her name is even worse. It’s one sound that Clementine hasn’t heard in a long time.

Not since his he lost his son and his wife, at least.

And Clementine can’t move either. She almost screams until she jams her own hand tightly across her mouth and then her other hand across that one; her hatchet falls from her loose, cold grip.

It’s been a while since she’s watched a person be ripped apart, piece by piece in front of her.

Carlos and Sarah have gone ahead of her. She feels someone tug her by her jacket’s hood and the worst fear of her life comes back. Suddenly, she’s nine years old again and she’s next to Lee as she walks through a herd in Savannah. That’s what it feels like, at least, and she instinctively rips away until the person’s arms close around her and hears Bonnie whispering in her ear.

“ _Come on… we gotta go, Clem – Clem please, go!_ ”

The separation from Bonnie takes only minutes. The horrible, sheer number of walkers in their path quickly overwhelms them, and though their cover isn’t broken yet, she and Bonnie can no longer see each other – which, to her, is a surprise because Bonnie sticks out like a sore thumb.

Clementine clutches the hatchet that Bonnie handed her back; she bites her lip until she bleeds as she tries to see ahead of herself in the black night. Holding back tears is difficult, and holding it back in a situation like this is even harder because she’s under even more of a threat and more duress.

The thumping in her head starts up again – it’s been a while, the longest she’s gone in a while (a few hours) without a migraine. The terrifying thoughts of another seizure or blacking out or passing out or just flat out death hang heavy as she tries her best to lie low.

It’s going to end, she tries to tell herself. Any minute now, it’s going to end and she’ll find someone. Maybe she’ll find Kenny and he won’t be any more scarred for life than he was before. Maybe she’ll find Luke and he’ll protect her, just as he did the day they first met. Maybe she’ll find none of them and she’ll have to keep herself safe with absolutely no help.

Of course, Clementine is no stranger to that. She likes to imply to people that she’s the most independent child they’ve ever met, even if on the inside, she wants nothing more than to hide in her shadow. She’s done this before, without an adult, and she lived. She’s survived without anyone else; she’s gotten through herds by herself.

The first person she finds is Rebecca. The woman sneaks up behind her and wraps her arms around her before pulling her away from the oncoming hoard.

“I can’t find anybody!” Clementine whispers, her eyes widening as she stares at Rebecca’s equally terrified expression.

Rebecca’s shoulders are trembling, and she leans in closer so that Clementine can hear her words, “I know – I don’t know what to do –”

Clementine doesn’t answer immediately. Physical weakness is one thing she’s been used to and has overcome many times before, but trying to think through every bit of fear, anxiety – and, though she wouldn’t admit it, illness – is like trying to think through molasses.

They have to keep going, otherwise the walkers will realize exactly what they are, or worse. Clementine’s mind could think and nitpick every little scenario related to both of their problems.

Maybe Rebecca would go into labor, or have an anxiety attack. Maybe Clementine would have a seizure. Maybe one of them would spontaneously go into cardiac arrest and leave the other helpless to do anything.

“I-I _can’t_ do this alone!” Rebecca grabs Clementine’s hand as she notices the glazed over look in her eyes. Clementine doesn’t even know how to respond. The only thing telling her which direction they’re facing in the sound of gunfire coming from the roof of Howe’s, and even then, it’s difficult to tell if she’s mistaking that for Bonnie and Luke. “Clem – please, try to stay awake, I-I _know_ it’s –”

She finally meets the woman’s eyes, then looks down at her bloodstained coat.

“I’m fine – we can’t stay here. We have to keep going.”

Rebecca has more to worry about than telling Clementine off for being stubborn. Instead, her gaze shifts to the building, which every walker in the general vicinity seems to be flocking towards. Her eyes widen again.

“Look,” she whispers, staying almost completely still. “The lurkers are still moving towards Howe’s. I think we might be able to make it out if we stick toge- _argh!_ ”

And just like that, Clementine backs up as Rebecca clenches her teeth and holds her pregnant stomach in pain. A surge of fear courses through her chest.

Rebecca is fine, just a moment later. She closes her eyes tightly, and places a hand on her stomach. They pain seems to disappear.

Braxton-Hicks contractions, Clementine remembers Christa having them. And a small amount of relief washes over her as Rebecca takes her by the wrist and mutters, “I’m glad you’re here.”

The two of them find Jane next, and the woman immediately grabs a hold of a feminine-appearing walker with no hands, then shoves her blade horizontally into its mouth. There’s a small crack as Jane wrestles with the walker’s jaw, and then within a moment, the rotten, putrid flesh severs. A gaping hole is left behind as the jaw bone falls to the ground.

“It’s a cow catcher,” Jane explains in a barely audible voice. “She’s light enough for me to carry.”

‘Light enough’ is an understatement. Jane picks the almost motionless walker up by its knees and lifts it above her head with ease.

The walker’s flesh has almost completely rotted off of its bones anyway, leaving hardly more than a skeleton with skin and platinum blonde hair that’s falling out in clumps.

“Follow me.” continues Jane in a low voice, sounding slightly strained. “Stay close. If you fall behind, I can’t come back for you.”

Clementine resists the urge to grab a hold of Rebecca’s shirt. Sure, she feels absolutely terrified beyond belief, but so does Rebecca, and there’s no need to make the woman feel like both of them are completely hopeless when it comes to being brave.

She holds the hatchet tightly in one hand, the other moving immediately to her coat’s pockets. She checks for the hardness in one of them that would present as her glucose monitor, and feels a small amount of relief when she realizes it hasn’t fallen out.

Despite her shaking knees, Clementine forces herself to keep up with Rebecca and Jane. She falls behind just slightly, hardly able to go faster, but she locks her eyes onto Jane’s golden brown coat and Rebecca’s light blue shirt, which both stand out among the gore and blood soaked clothes of the walkers around them.

And before she knows it, they’re in the forest. The walkers are beginning to lighten up. There’s a clear path ahead of them.

Jane throws the walker down onto its stomach, then immediately stabs it in the back of the head with her knife. She turns to Clementine and Rebecca and then nods towards the forest with a quiet, “Let’s go.”

The forest is peaceful, almost. There’s no one there but them. No walkers, no animals except for a few birds, clearly leftover from migration, who make the slightest of noise as they fly through from branch to branch.

Clementine forces herself to follow Jane as closely as possible, no matter how much she wants to sleep.

Rebecca doesn’t look at either of them. Her hand is on her stomach and her breathing is as labored as Clementine’s, which the girl immediately notices.  
She falls behind Jane slightly, which Jane also notices, and then moves back towards Rebecca as subtly as she can.

“Is… everything alright?” she asks the woman quietly.

Rebecca shakes her head, clenching her teeth tightly. “No, everything’s _not_ alright… but I’ll be a lot better when we get to the others.” She removes her hand from her stomach, then looks down to Clementine. “I need to make sure everyone made it out… goddammit, what if they aren’t there?”

“If they aren’t, nothing we can do about it.” Jane responds emotionlessly. She just barely looks back at them from over her shoulder.

“Don’t say things like that!” Rebecca snaps, narrowing her eyes.

Jane apologizes immediately.

“Jesus,” Rebecca mutters, clenching her teeth. “We don’t even know if we’re safe! What if the herd’s still following us?” She turns her head over her shoulder towards the way they’ve just come, then looks to the side.

Clementine sees nothing now. Of course, she can’t exactly see as it is. Vision blurring, her head is pounding again, and the back-and-forth chatter between Rebecca and Jane isn’t helping. She feels uneasy just being in the woods, and the thumping against her chest and her head isn’t helping. Slowly, she slips her bloodied hands into her pockets, her numb fingers trying to take a grasp on the fabric and the glucose monitor. It’s not working.

She’s slower now. Unsteady. Nauseated.

“… We just have to keep up a good pace.” comes Jane’s voice matter-of-factly. Clementine doesn’t look up to the woman, but feels her gaze lingering. She’s not going to deny that it’s a bit creepy, the way Jane stares at people, but she can’t bring herself to care.

“I know.” Rebecca responds, sounding a bit guilty. “I’m goin’ as fast as I can.” There’s a pause. “I think Clem is, too…” The way she ends her sentence makes Clementine wonder if Rebecca is about to ask if she’s all right; of course, she would answer yes.

Just because Clementine can’t feel her legs and the ground looks soft… that doesn’t mean she isn’t okay.

It just means she’s cold and tired, but she can barely remember the last time she wasn’t, so that’s nothing new and nothing serious, right?

It’s Jane who asks first, not Rebecca. She turns her head and her eyebrow raises. She asks in a cautious tone, “Uh, Clementine?”

Clementine doesn’t respond. Her entire head and face feels as if she’s being squeezed too hard. Every little noise and movement feels like too much – but she can feel it. She’s not losing feeling in her limbs, which she hopes means she’s not about to seize. But she can’t force her mouth to work. Instead, she flicks her eyes up, hoping that Jane will catch on.

Jane must be catching on, because she continues with, “… So, are you going to be all right? Just how diabetic are you?”

Clementine doesn’t even know how to respond to a question like that. The only thing she knows at all about her condition is that she feels like absolute _shit_ and it’s supposedly managed with constant shots. She doesn’t answer, suddenly realizing that she doesn’t have said needles on her, nor the insulin, or even the other drum of test strips that are supposed to be placed into the glucose monitor when the one already inside inevitably runs out.

She remembers Carlos has the bag of medical supplies, which holds the insulin, syringes, and that case that the glucose monitor is supposed to go into, and she has absolutely no idea where he and Sarah got to, or if they’re even still alive. She thinks she saw them get away, but at this point, she’s so tired that she can’t be sure at all. And Jane’s still looking at her, as if waiting for an answer to the question. And then there’s Rebecca, who looks as if she’s going to flip out when she realizes they have no insulin on them.

Instead, Clementine answers the question by stumbling in her tracks, regaining her footing, and making her way over to a rock. She sits up against it, her fatigue hitting her like a ton of bricks.

Rebecca stops to, and sits on the top of the rock, while Jane’s eyes just get wide.

“That bad?”

Clementine doesn’t respond. Everything hurts too much for her to try to form words. She starts to pull the glucose monitor out, but her hands refuse to cooperate. She gets it half-way out before a panting Rebecca leans over with obvious difficulty and pulls the rest of it.  
Dripping in sweat beads and blood that isn’t hers, Clementine tries to pull the monitor from Rebecca’s hand. Part of her wants to know what Rebecca is doing, the other parts want sleep. Another, separate part of her wants to know why she feels so hot and cold at the same time.

Jane takes the glucose monitor from a pained Rebecca, and she asks something Clementine can’t make out. When Clementine doesn’t answer, she repeats the question.

“Where’s the test strip?”

“Push the…” Clementine squints, staring at the glucose monitor suspiciously. The name of the little mechanism that dispenses the test strips is something that escapes her mind. She can’t remember – _why can’t she remember_? Irritability is straining at her head.

“Push the what?” demands Jane, looking the device with a confused expression.

“The-the BUTTON!” Clementine shouts this against her will. She has a sudden urge to get up and punch Jane and then herself for not remembering how to dispense the test strips. The word she was looking for is _button_ , not the _little thing you push_ as she thought a moment ago. She places her head in her bloody hands, ragged breathing taking over.

Clementine wipes her hands on her shirt after unzipping her jacket. It’s not until she reaches out to grab the glucose monitor that she remembers Jane’s holding it. Holding her hand out expectantly for the glucose monitor, Jane hastily hands it over, putting up her hands as a sign of surrender and a promise that she won’t try to test for Clementine.

It’s good for Clementine, because she’s too embarrassed to let anyone else see the number anyway. She knows it’s high, and that’s why she’s so hungry and thirsty, and why she has to pee – but God, _why_ won’t it go down? Oh, right, she thinks. _It’s because you have a dead organ floating around in your body_.

She’s only focusing on the monitor after she pricks her finger. She’s not listening at all to what Rebecca is telling her, or what Jane is telling Rebecca, and she’s definitely not listening to what they’re going back and forth about.

Her number is slightly below seven-hundred. Clementine can’t stop the tears start up again, no matter how much she wipes them away. Shame hits her square in the chest when she realizes Rebecca’s position means she can see the number. Shame hits her square in the chest when Jane asks her why she’s crying.

Fear hits her square in the chest when she remembers how she can die without insulin. Some days she wants to die because of a simple thought of someone or something, other days just doesn’t see a point. But deep inside, she doesn’t want to die because of a stupid autoimmune disease. She’s not ready for death, no matter how much she sees it and thinks about it on a daily basis.

The only thoughts after this that fill Clementine’s head are that if Jane and Rebecca try to take pity on her, she’s going to run off in a hyperglycemic daze and never face them again. It’s too awkward. And they don’t, though Rebecca does have to help her stand, and that earns Clementine a look that she doesn’t want to meet again, because it feels too pitiful.

* * *

 Mike and Bonnie are waiting for them when they first make their way to Parker’s Run. They’re standing next a half-destroyed arch and a wall full of information about some historical, Civil War-era event that went on at that time.

“Holy shit!” says Mike with a smile. Bonnie matches it as well when she sees them.

Clementine doesn’t look up. She sees Kenny just a few feet away, sitting on the edge of an empty fountain, looking down at his feet. She doesn’t smile; she just feels the urge to run off back into the woods.

How can she face him?

She finds a seat against the wall while Rebecca tries to find her own spot, while speaking to Mike.  
It’s Bonnie who asks Clementine if she’s alright, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder. Clementine doesn’t answer, she just buries her face in her knees, ignoring the pain in her stomach, the pain in her bladder, and the words that Bonnie says.

All she thinks about is Kenny, and how horrible he must feel. Sarita’s dead. The woman he had gotten so close to – the woman who almost seemed like the do over version of his wife – was bitten and devoured right in front of him, and when he had called Clementine in his time of need, she was too… too _cowardly_ , too _scared_ to help him.

Carlos and Sarah come out of the woods just a few minutes later, as well, with Sarah visibly upset, and Carlos not looking too happy either.

Sarah sits next to Clementine with a dazed expression on her face. She doesn’t face anyone, not even Clementine, and instead stares at the forest.

Clementine knows it must be the first time Sarah’s seen a death as violent as Sarita’s.

“I saw the test strips in the woods and thought, ‘I wonder who that could be?’” Carlos tells her in a sarcastic tone as he pulls out a plastic bag full of unopened needles and syringes.  
Clementine says nothing, and instead simply pulls out the glucose monitor and its pen.

The glucose monitor says nothing new. Clementine takes a needle to the other side of her stomach instead of the lower right side, and part of her wonders if she’ll have bruising all around her stomach by the time she hits her twelfth birthday… if she makes it that far, at least.

She doesn’t have much time to brood on this before noticing the missing Nick and Luke. She’s not scared at first, because she knows they know where Parker’s Run is. Maybe they just got held up. It takes a moment for the possibility that they’re _dead_ or _worse_ to cross her mind.

“Rebecca might have her baby soon.” Clementine suddenly says to Sarah. Sarah doesn’t respond.

It’s clear that Bonnie hears this when she suddenly turns to Rebecca and asks, “Shit – _soon,_ soon?”

Carlos makes a quiet noise that sounds half-way between a growl and sigh.  
Rebecca nods, and murmurs, “That’s what it _seems_ like.”

“This memorial works fine as a meeting spot, but there’s no way we can stay here long-term.” Mike points out, looking around at all of the details.

Bonnie sighs, “I _told_ you. That’s why we’re waitin’! And as soon as Nick and Luke get here, we’ll figure somethin’ out!”

Clementine looks up at Bonnie with a grim expression. Truthfully, she’s not actually intending to look depressed, but it’s all she can muster as she asks, “What does Kenny want to do?”

Bonnie and Mike share a glance towards each, almost as if on cue.

“I tried to talk to Kenny,” Mike tells her in a low voice. “He flipped out on me.” He sounds hurt, and Clementine doesn’t doubt that he is. Kenny’s temper has always been bad, from the day she met him and now. “Started yellin’. Scary shit.”

It’s Bonnie, surprisingly who comes to his defense. “I know… he prol’y didn’t mean it. But it was… _scary_.” She puts a hand on Mike shoulder and shoots him the same look she did earlier.

Clementine doesn’t answer for a moment. She rubs her temples with her fingers and begins mentally sorting through her options. She’s terrified of speaking to Kenny; what would she even say? She’s always been the kind of person to plan conversations in her head, and conversations like that are the most difficult. Kenny’s unpredictable, and if he’s brave enough to yell at Mike, who can probably pick him up and throw him, what would he do with her?

“I’ve been nervous to even go near him.” admits Mike slowly, a sad look crossing his face.

“What?” Jane asks in an almost comical way. “D’you think he’s gonna shoot you?”

“What, the way he is right now? I dunno – maybe. He’s not actin’ rationally.”

Bonnie takes one look at Kenny and murmurs, “He’s just not thinkin’ straight.”

“Most people don’t when they’re grieving.” Carlos replies quietly. “And Kenny is…” _Many things_ , Clementine mentally finishes, though she doesn’t say this aloud.

Kenny is so many things. He’s a good man. He’s protective. He’s loud and rash – and he’s paranoid. He’s human. But now, one thing that Kenny isn’t is rational.

“We can’t just keep sittin’ here. Somebody’s gotta do somethin’.”

That’s when Bonnie speaks up. She kneels down to Clementine’s level and says in a quiet tone, almost a whisper, “Clem? I was thinkin’ that since you’re here, you could maybe go talk to him.” She has a gentle look in her eyes, but Clementine isn’t sure what to say.

“I don’t-I don’t know if I should…”

“Clem,” Rebecca says, looking down. “I know it’s hard, and that you might be scared… But I think it’s for the best. He trusts you.”

Getting to her feet, Clementine feels her heart hammer against her chest. She places her hands into her pants pocket and slowly makes her way past Mike and Bonnie, in Kenny’s general direction. Discomfort yanks at her conscience. A million questions buzz through her mind – some about how he’ll react, and some asking _why_ she had to just stay stuck there. Why she couldn’t help him when he shouted for her to.

Kenny has a gun in his hand. The other hand rests on his thigh, his gaze completely fixated on the stones that lay around the ground and the walkway. He’s mumbling to himself, a silent prayer.

When she first sees the gun, Clementine wishes she had on a bulletproof vest instead of blue jacket with a sun and rainbow.

“Kenny…” she says in a quiet voice, still somehow the loudest she can manage. Her throat hurts, mouth completely bone dry. It’s the most she can get out.

His remaining eye is what greets her when he looks up. A silent reminder of what she also could have prevented. It’s red-rimmed and glassy. His visible eye furrows.

“You think I don’t know what y’all are whisperin’ about over there?”

His rant begins this way first, and his voice sounds thick, as if he may just start crying if he continues on. But no tears fall as he does.

“I’m so sorry.” Clementine says, her voice hoarse. She can barely meet his eye. “I’m _so sorry_ about Sarita-”

Kenny scoffs, and his eye widens before he mocks, “’Sorry’, huh? Well, _that’s_ nice of you, seein’ as you did nothin’ about it in the first place. Just stood there while she screamed…”

It’s as if she’s been physically smacked across the face. Clementine backs up.  
“There wasn’t anything I could do.”

“Funny. That ain’t what it looked like, seein’ as you had a fuckin’ hatchet in your hands. You coulda done a lot of things, Clementine – you coulda taken down one of the fuckin’ walkers when I asked you to! But no, you had to stand there starin’ at her.”

She says nothing for several seconds, afraid she may dissolve into tears if she does.  
“I didn’t know what to do…” It comes out as less of a sentence and more of whimper, and that’s when another verbal smack across the face comes.

“You think just because you’re a little girl, you can get people killed and no one’ll care?”

Clementine steps backwards, taken aback. She feels horror rise up inside of her like a poisonous snake springing its prey. It’s more than just another smack to the face. She’d have _preferred_ a smack to the face.

“That because you’re _sorry_ , it’ll all magically go away!” She wraps her arms around herself as her mind screams for her to say something. But she can’t. “That’s not how it works – just because _you’re_ gonna die soon don’t mean _everyone else_ has to suffer the same way!”

When she looks up past Kenny, she sees the others all have expressions conveying shock. She shakes her head, trying to blink back tears that are already beginning to form.

“Now – for _the last time_ , get the _fuck outta here and leave me alone_!”

Clementine does, crossing her arms tightly to her chest. His voice… it shakes her to her core. The tone. The words. Everything. So she walks right past him, and part of her wants to run. She doesn’t even look up at the others, and instead, her mind focuses on what Kenny has just said.

She has gotten people killed. Of course she has; she thinks of Lee, how her _stupidity_ drove him to sacrifice his life. She thinks of Christa, who had taken the brunt of the attack from those scavengers. She thinks of Kenny’s eye. He took a beating for her. One that could have potentially ended in death.

And how has she repaid him? By standing by and watching his girlfriend get bitten and devoured by walkers when she had a weapon in her hands. When he had specifically asked for her help.

_Just because you’re gonna die soon don’t mean everyone else has to suffer the same way._

Clementine doesn’t know if she’s going to die. Maybe they would be better off if she did.

No one says anything as she comes closer. Every single glance is on either her or Kenny, and some of the group don’t look sure on whether they want to punch him or get a million miles away. Clementine wants to punch _herself_ and then get a million miles away.

She shouldn’t have spoken to him.

Bonnie approaches her first.  
“Clem –”

“I said I –” Clementine doesn’t meet Bonnie’s eyes. She feels the tremors running through her shoulders as she struggles to take in a small breath. She can’t bring herself to look up. “I _said_ I didn’t _want_ to talk to him –”

She keeps walking past them, past the arch – and then over to the broken down bricks. Her jacket brushes on the pointy parts of the bricks, but she doesn’t even care how it snags. She doesn’t care if rips.

She sits down in the dirt and stares out into the woods.


	4. Chapter 4

The group doesn’t pressure Clementine to return back to them. They say nothing to Kenny, and nothing about him. Bonnie stands next to her, leaning up against the bricks, almost completely silent.  
Clementine isn’t listening to the group, but she knows they’re talking about Luke and Nick. The two are still missing, even now, and no one has any idea where they might be.

Clementine practically stabs her finger with the lancet pen without a prompt. Her blood glucose has gone down immensely, over three hundred milliliters per deciliter, leaving it at just barely five hundred. It’s still high, she knows, but she doesn’t care.

According to Kenny, she’s going to die anyway. She doesn’t want to die, except for moments like this when she does. When she’s too scared to hear what other people have to say. When she’s too ashamed of the things she’s done and the deaths she’s caused.

It’s too much.

* * *

 They find Luke sitting on the ground in front of Nick’s reanimated corpse, outside of a trailer park. When Jane suggested going to find them, she decided to take Clementine only because the asked to, and Mike came along just for extra security. This is the last thing they expected to see.

Clementine stares for a moment, heart dropping as she watches Nick reach out, look around, and growl. He’s caught on a fence. A bullet hole finds its home in Nick’s shoulder, his dark shirt soaked with blood. His grayed, decaying skin is stained and cut, as if he became stuck on the fence before his death.

Luke doesn’t take his eyes off of Nick. He just sits there, staring. He speaks quietly to them when they ask him how long he’s been there, how long Nick has been stuck in the fence. It takes Luke a moment to answer. He has tear tracks down his fair, bruised face.

“He was shot.” Luke murmurs, not getting up from his place on the ground. “We went into the trailer to get supplies. I told him to look for somethin’ outside; maybe get help from y’all…” He pauses and looks away from the man in question. “… And then I found him.”

If there’s a way the day could get any worse, Clementine vows to eat dirt.

* * *

 When they return back to Parker’s Run, Rebecca’s water breaks. She leans on Luke for support, though he seems so shaken up already that he can barely offer it.  
Clementine mentally wonders if she _should_ eat dirt, because this day has gotten much worse. She’s probably hungry enough to do it, anyway.

Kenny doesn’t speak to them. He instead hides inside of a tent on the monument grounds, and no one makes the same mistake of sending Clementine to speak with him again. She avoids the tent, and for that record, she avoids pretty much everyone except Sarah.

Mike and Bonnie leave with Jane to search for a safe, secured spot nearby for Rebecca to rest in, while Kenny leaves the tent only to set off somewhere with Luke moments later. He doesn’t even look at Clementine when he does.

She and Sarah are nearby the fountain, and just a few feet away, Rebecca is leaning her head up against the brick arch. Carlos stands next to her, his hand on her shoulder, but Clementine can’t make out their words.

“I can’t believe she’s about to have the baby…” Sarah says in quiet awe. Clementine looks up. Those are practically the first words she’s heard Sarah say all day. “Do you think she’s – do you think she’ll be okay?”

Clementine shrugs, pulling her knees up to her chest and pulling her coat closer to her flesh. She ‘stole’ Bonnie’s water bottle - if one can even call it stealing if she gets caught stealing it and told she can keep it – which she takes hesitant sips from, in her attempt to treasure the bit of supplies they have left.

“Yeah, I’ll think she’ll be okay.” Clementine says, though her thoughts linger on Christa’s dead child. “Rebecca’s tough, and your dad’s a good doctor.”

Sarah nods. Her curious brown eyes linger on Clementine for a moment, and just a split second is all it takes for her notice the girl’s frown.  
“Are you okay, Clem?” she asks, turning to face her. “I heard… what Kenny said.”

Clementine nods, unable to meet Sarah’s gaze. She takes another small sip from Bonnie’s water bottle and replies, “It’s not a big deal.”

“But it made you upset,” Sarah points out, sitting up on her knees. “What he said was really mean. Even if he’s really mad – that doesn’t mean he should get to _hurt_ you. Even _I’m_ really mad, I still don’t wanna hurt anyone.”

 _That isn’t the way the world works_ , Clementine thinks, closing her eyes with a small sigh. She doesn’t say this, however, and instead nods in agreement before replying, “Yeah, I know.”

Bonnie, Mike, and Jane return around twenty minutes later. By now, Rebecca has progressed from using the brick arch as her support to sitting in various pained positions around the memorial.

Clementine barely pays attention to them when they do come back, but the one thing that does catch her eye is the bag in Jane’s hand. The bag that she sure as heck knows Jane didn’t have before. She doesn’t pay too much attention to it, though, because part of her doesn’t even want to know.

Bonnie beckons for her to come over to them a moment later. Reluctantly, Clementine pulls her tired body off of the ground and makes her way over to them, clutching Bonnie’s half-empty water bottle in her hand.

“Hey, City Mouse, you feel any better?” The little nickname that Bonnie started up isn’t one that Clementine is familiar with, but she likes it well enough.

She answers with a small shrug, and then tries to pretend she doesn’t notice Jane with the bag. Knowing what she does about Jane, she probably stole it from someone, and Clementine doesn’t want anything to do with that. Instead, she looks back up to Bonnie, waiting for a reason why she was called.

“Good.” Bonnie looks up to Rebecca and Carlos as well, and then tells all three of them, “We found somewhere you to have the baby, Becca. It’s an observation deck – we think it might be some kind of gift shop.”

Relief stretches across Rebecca’s face as she doubles over again in dull discomfort. “Oh, thank _God_.”

“What’s it… feel like?” Mike suddenly pipes up, looking over Bonnie’s shoulder at Rebecca, who simply makes a noise that sounds half-way between a scoff and a dark laugh.

“It feels wet, Mike. Like I just pissed myself. And the worst period cramps of my life.”

Mike doesn’t ask Rebecca anything similar to this again.

“Anyway,” Bonnie begins again, a small smirk playing on her lips. “Mike and I were gonna go check out the memorial museum. It’s just down the road. You wanna check it out with us, Clem? We can look for supplies.”

It’s a chance do something useful, Clementine thinks. It’s a chance to get away from the laboring Rebecca and hopefully not bump into Kenny for a long time. Eagerly, she nods, and begins to ask where it is.

Before they go, Carlos pulls her aside and asks, for the umpteenth time, about her glucose reading.

“It was in the lower four-hundreds the last time I checked it.” Clementine replies, pulling out the device. She lowers her voice. “Do I _have_ to test it again?” Truthfully, her finger still hurts from how hard she had basically stabbed it earlier.

So she checks it, and the number hasn’t changed. It’s gone down immensely, which is a miracle in her eyes. Her heart hammers as she thinks about how it’ll probably come back up by the time she injects her next dose of insulin, which is supposed to happen when she gets back from the museum.  
Carlos explains that if her glucose levels continue to drop the way it’s currently dropping, Clementine may end up taking less insulin than both of them had previously thought.

“Has anyone fed you today?” Carlos suddenly asks in a tone that makes Clementine wonder if he meant to say it aloud.

By this point, her stomach has been growling for so long that she’s gotten used to it. She shakes her head slowly. It’s hard to believe that she’s actually forgotten to eat, having been used to inhaling anything she can get her hands on so often.

“Luke and Kenny said that they would look for food while they’re out.” Carlos replies, grimacing. “Bonnie has small amounts in her bag, but that’s it. And you,” He raises an eyebrow. “You’re underweight enough as it is. You need to make sure to eat something, now that your glucose levels are coming down.”

Clementine nods, placing the monitor back into her pocket. With him bringing up Kenny, the man’s earlier words come back up.

_Just because you’re gonna die soon don’t mean everyone else has to suffer the same way._

“Can I ask you something?” Clementine says in a low voice. Her heart hammers against her chest and she finds herself crossing her arms loosely.

Carlos nods slowly.

“Remember,” She looks away, sudden discomfort burning in her chest. Her face feels hot now, and for a moment, she’s not sure if she can get everything out. “Remember when we were in the medical room at the store, and I asked you if I was going to die?” She pauses again and then asks quietly, “Do you think I _am_ going to die?” 

There’s a pause. Carlos’ reaction reminds Clementine of an uptight parent hearing their child utter a horrible swear word in front of a bunch of other people. It takes this for Clementine to regret asking the question, almost as quickly as she had thought to ask it.

“Go with Mike and Bonnie, Clem. Be careful.” is all he answers.

Clementine does. She places her hands in her coat pockets and follows Bonnie and Mike away from the memorial site.

* * *

Clementine follows Mike and Bonnie closely. Even though she can’t see any walkers, she knows that they’re always nearby.

“So you _are_ feelin’ better, right?” asks Bonnie in a concerned tone. “You took that insulin stuff?”

Clementine nods, thinking about the last conversation with Carlos and Kenny’s comments. It continues to play through her head. She won’t admit that she’s scared. She tries to convince herself that she’s not scared. It doesn’t work.

Mike turns his head just slightly to see over his shoulder and says, “Good that they caught it when they did. My grandmother was diabetic. She lost her one of her legs, actually!”

Bonnie smacks his shoulder and hisses his name. Clementine’s blood freezes in her veins, eyes widening at Mike’s comment. It seems that hers and Bonnie’s reactions are all that it takes for him to realize that telling a diabetic eleven year old about losing a leg due the disease isn’t the most appropriate thing to be said.

“Okay – damn it, I’m _sorry_. I-I shouldn’t have said that, Clem. Sorry.”

Clementine avoids his gaze as she continues behind him and Bonnie. She takes another sip from Bonnie’s water bottle, then looks up to see if the woman has noticed that she still has her water bottle. Bonnie doesn’t seem to, but that’s exactly when Clementine realizes this sip is the last bit of water in the metallic bottle.

Internally, she swears, though she says nothing aloud to alert Bonnie or Mike that the only bit of water they can find has just been drunk. Internally, Clementine scolds herself; she knows she’ll need to urinate more and more, now that she’s actually put fluids in her dehydrated body. Her dry tongue still begs for more.

She remembers the days when she drank water until she nearly vomited, and almost wonders if she’d be better off still drinking until she _does_ throw up.

“Now you tell one o’ us if you’re feelin’ – you know, _sick_ ,” Bonnie speaks again, breaking Clementine out of her thoughts on the water. “Just in case, Clem. I just…” She looks ashamed for a moment. “I just don’t want you to have another seizure and for us to not know what’s happenin’.”

This combined with Kenny’s previous remarks and the lack of answers about mortality are enough that Clementine doesn’t want to talk about it. She doesn’t want to talk about Mike’s one-legged grandmother or seizures, either. Her blood sugar is lower, of course. Not completely normal or close to normal, but low enough that she’s not at the same level she was during her seizures.

“Can we talk about something other than diabetes?” Clementine asks indignantly. “I’m still _me_. I’m not sick. I’m _fine_.” She’s fine, she thinks, except she has a dead organ floating around somewhere in her lower abdomen. Truthfully, she just wants to wake up from the nightmare of a week-and-a-half she’s been having.

“Sure, I guess.” Mike replies, surveying the area for walkers. “We can talk about how _damn cold_ it is out here.”

Bonnie lets out a small chuckle, looking from Clementine to Mike, then asks sweetly, “You missin’ your flip-flops, Mister?”

Mike responds with a roll of his eyes and a scoff. “Yeah, Bonnie, ‘cause you definitely wouldn’t rather it be summer, would you? You just _love_ the cold weather…”

“Have you seen me?” Bonnie chuckles, then points to her hair. “I’m a damn _ginger_ , Mike. We don’t tan. I walk outside durin’ the summer and I look like a goddamn _lobster._ ”

When they finally reach the museum after a few minutes, Clementine feels slightly less than mildly winded. Just forcing her tiny body around has tired her out lately, so this feels much better.

The museum is open to the world, missing a wall. Judging by the doors, Clementine guesses it may have been some kind of large barn or stable during the Civil War area, but she can’t be sure.

There’s no activity inside of the building, as far as Clementine can see. All she sees are things she remembers vaguely learning about in her pseudo, first grade history class – different flags, including an American flag, as well as rows upon rows of headstones and a statue of man in a Civil War-era uniform.

When they get into the building, there’s even a roped off cannon sitting in the middle of the room.

“Keep one eye on the woods while we’re in here.” says Bonnie, placing her hand on her pocket. Clementine wonders for a moment if she has a knife, similar to Jane. “I don’t want nothin’ sneakin’ up on us when we’re not lookin’.”

Mike nods in agreement, then points to the side they’ve entered into.  
“I’ll watch this side, you watch the other.”

“Deal.”

Clementine wanders around the museum room for a moment, pausing in front of the cannon. There’s a stack of small cannon balls that seem welded together, or even possibly fake.

“Do you think these work anymore?”

“Nah,” answers Mike. He turns to see what she’s looking at. “They’re just for show. It’d be handy, though.”

Clementine has a sudden thought about just how many walkers she can potentially take out with one single cannonball. Probably a lot, she thinks.

“Also, really loud,” Bonnie admonishes in a playful tone.

There’s some kind of desk at the front of the room that Mike’s examining. Observing him for a moment, Clementine can’t exactly tell if he’s trying to pull the metal shutters up, or if he’s simply trying to kill time, but isn’t sure how to do it.

A few feet away from the cannon display is a table full of souvenirs. Clementine only sees keychains and knickknacks – not too much that she’s interested in.

“Souvenirs, huh?” asks Bonnie gently. She smiles politely, then looks at the table herself. “You lookin’ for a keychain with your name on it.”

Clementine turns, feeling slightly confused. “No,” she replies. “Why would I want a keychain? I don’t have any keys.” And of course, there’s the glaring fact that she’s never actually seen her name on anything but birthday cake and drawings. Not many people, she remembers thinking when she was very young, name their children after a fruit.

“She’s mad she can’t find her name, Bonnie.” Mike jokes, albeit correctly.

They search around the large room for several minutes before Clementine spots a gray jacket laying folded up on the edge of one of the displays. It appears large and thick, though she isn’t a fan of the texture.

“Hey look – I found an old coat!”

“Nice find, Clem!” Bonnie says from her place next to a figurine set a few feet away. “You should hold onto that.”

“I could give it to Rebecca.” Clementine suggests, hugging the jacket to her chest.

They show it to Mike when he finally walks over to see them, and the man looks at them with an impressed expression first, then changes to one of a horrible realization.

“That’s great, but isn’t gray the color of the, uh…?” He looks pitiful for a moment, then looks at Bonnie. “We can’t put Rebecca in a Confederate coat.”

Bonnie laughs, then looks from Clementine to Mike and answers, “Oh, I didn’t even think about that!”

Mike shrugs, then turns. “Guess it’s better than nothin’.”

The information desk that Mike was at has the word _Closed_ plastered onto the shutter. Clementine slowly makes her way over, trying to see what it was that had Mike so interested for such a long time, or if he really _was_ just killing time.

When she peeks into the cardboard box that sits on the counter, she has to stand on her toes in order to see. There are many things Clementine dislikes, and being only four-foot nine is one of them.

“Nothing but junk in there, trust me.” Mike says from a few feet away.

Clementine moves the empty box away, and behind it is a rusty handle. Careful to avoid cutting herself, she places one hand around the handle, and one hand on the shutters. With difficultly, she pushes the shutter up as far as she can… which, admittedly, isn’t all that far.

Through the few inches she can see, there’s two large water bottles. Her eyes light up, her dry mouth begging for just a bit more water.

“Over here!” Clementine calls, turning to Mike and Bonnie.

Both of them make their ways over, Clementine feeling a bit impressed with herself. This seems to be the most useful thing she’s done in the last week or so.

“It’s bottled and clean – it’s just what we need!” Bonnie exclaims, shooting Clementine a gentle smile. She reaches for the doorknob to the door that leads behind the counter, but it doesn’t budge. “Of course. It’s locked. You wanna kick it down?”

Mike seems to consider this for a moment, but ultimately shakes his head before replying, “That’d make an awful amount of noise.”

Bonnie nods slowly, then her eyes focus on Clementine for a moment. Then, she exchanges a glance with Mike. “You know, if _somebody_ was small enough, they _could_ maybe squeeze through there.”

Clementine knows immediately what Bonnie wants her to do. Mike, on the other hand… no so much.

“I could try to pry it open more,” he offers eagerly. “But I think it’d just make even more noise.”

“No,” Bonnie corrects, nodding to Clementine. “I _mean_ maybe –”

Wordlessly, Clementine turns to face the counter and places her hands onto the edge, preparing to climb up onto it.

“Is that safe?” asks Mike, peering through the crack again.

Neither of them answer. Instead, Bonnie begins to tell her, “All right – just open the door from the other side. Mike will get the water bottles.” She chuckles lightly. “They might be a bit heavy for you.”

Removing her ball cap, Clementine nods, then grabs a hold of the inside of the desk. Carefully, she pushes her head and shoulders though the space, then begins her attempts to push her lower body through.

And it’s just when she finally gets in up to her pelvis that her blood freezes over because something wraps itself around her wrist.

When Clementine screams, Bonnie grabs ahold of her ankle first, wrestling with the walker that wasn’t attracted by sound – and that doesn’t seem to be letting go. Clementine can’t hear what Mike and Bonnie are shouting over her own screaming as the walker’s strong arms pull her wrist closer and closer to its mouth.

Mike is slamming himself against the door as hard as he can, and it’s just when Bonnie’s graps digs into Clementine’s pelvis that the door flies open. Storming in, Mike grabs the walker by its disgusting, torn throat and slams it against the wall with a crack, then pushes it down immediately underneath him.

Clementine pulls herself down from the counter and falls back as she listens to Mike yelling for Bonnie to smash the walker’s head in. And she does – she stomps on the walker’s head until it’s nothing but bloody mush. For a split second, when Clementine first sees it, she thinks of Carver, then puts the thoughts out of her head.

“Well…” Mike says, standing to his full height. “That happened.”

There’s two large water bottles there. Both full. Both unopened.

Her heart hasn’t stopped beating violently against her rib cage; she hears Bonnie’s promise that she’ll never send Clementine into a situation like that again.

“Are you all right?”

 _I’m not dead yet_ , Clementine thinks.

“Can we just get the water bottles and go?”

* * *

 Bonnie and Mike banter on and on as they reach Parker’s Run. Mike’s somehow managed to carry both of the water bottles, which each look as if they weigh as much as Clementine, back to their meeting place.

Clementine has a small feeling he’s only doing it to impress Bonnie.

Rebecca is yelling by the time they get back to Parker’s Run. Kenny is kneeled next to her as she sits at the edge of the fountain, while Carlos is next to her. Both seem to be conversing with her, giving her different instructions on how to deal with the pain of labor.

When Clementine walks past them, Kenny doesn’t look up at her, or acknowledge her presence. She isn’t quite sure if that’s something she wants or not.

* * *

 When they bring Rebecca to the observation deck, Clementine is the first one to climb the stairs. She immediately hears Jane and Luke speaking back and forth, rather flirtatiously, and when she turns the corner, she finds Luke pulling her shirt back on, and Jane zipping up her jacket.

Clementine stands there for a moment as Luke tries to make up an excuse. She doesn’t even know what to think about this. This, by far, is the number one thing on her list of things she doesn’t want to even think about, at least when it concerns people other than Kenny.

Speaking of Kenny, the man shouts at both of them until his voice grows hoarse. He calls them every name under the sun, even comparing them to “horny teenagers” – _whatever that means_ , Clementine thinks to herself.

Luke shouts back. Kenny shrieks back at him. Jane yells at _him_. Sarah covers her ears while Clementine listens from inside of the observation deck. It’s not a good day. All she wants is one day of peace and quiet, with no yelling.

“Clem,” Bonnie says to her not too much later. “Why don’t you give Rebecca that jacket you found?”

Rebecca isn’t screaming now. Her pants are at her knees and a large green blanket is thrown over her private area while she pants in intervals. She looks up, suddenly looking a lot colder than Clementine previously thought she was.

After retrieving the jacket, she and Bonnie both try to aide Rebecca in putting the jacket on, pausing when Rebecca yelps in pain.

“Sorry about the color.” Mike says, crossing his arms.

“Do you _really think I care about the color?”_

“Well, it’s actually a Confederate coat!” Sarah suddenly points out, rather innocently. “Gray was the Confederate color during the Civil War.”

* * *

 The baby is a boy. Rebecca cries tears of joy when Carlos pinches him and he begins to cry at the top of his small lungs. They wrap the green blanket around him after he’s clean, and Clementine wants to cover her ears as he continues to cry.

Ten fingers, ten toes. He has a wrinkled face and light brown skin, but his eyes open wide as he glances around at the noisy, dirty room that bustles with movement and emotion.

Clementine can’t take her eyes off of him as he waves his tiny arms and legs. She watches like a hawk for every movement, feeling small amounts of anxiety pangs in her chest.

She remembers the stillbirth of Christa’s baby. There was no movement at all.

Thankfully, Rebecca’s child is a rather squirmy baby.


	5. Chapter 5

“What’re you doing?”

The sentence from Sarah comes when Clementine is sitting on the back stairwell of the observation deck. One leg pokes through the bars, dangling as she shifts it side to side. Peering up at the other girl, she watches as Sarah takes a seat next to her and pulls her own knees to her chest.

Clementine responds with a half-shrug and murmurs in a quiet voice, “I’m just thinking. It’s quieter out here.” She stares at the steps that lead to a landing, and then to another set of rickety, wooden steps that lead down to the ground.  
It _is_ quieter out here, without the baby’s interval cries, or the voices of the rest of the group. She hears them through the walls, muffled and almost completely incomprehensible.

Sarah shifts her own gaze to Clementine before asking in an almost cheerful, yet curious voice, “About what?”

“A lot of stuff.” Clementine responds quietly. She wraps her hand around a rough bar on the landing, then leans her head against it. The headaches aren’t entirely gone yet, and she’s tired enough as it is. But every time she closes her eyes, she thinks of something that makes her open them again. When Sarah doesn’t respond with more than a nod, Clementine continues with, “A lot of stuff has happened. You know, it’s crazy that I’ve only known you for, a week and a half.”

A lot of ‘stuff’ _has_ happened. It’s more than just meeting Sarah and the group, and meeting Kenny again, and the imprisonment at Howe’s… Clementine doesn’t actually want to talk about it, but she knows Sarah’s genuinely curious about her thoughts. At this point, she doesn’t exactly want to sugar-coat things.

“Yeah, it’s crazy, isn’t it?” Sarah beams. “I actually can’t believe it. It feels like so much longer.”

Clementine does think that a lot of the issue with it feeling like longer is that they’ve been up and fighting and walking around so much more than normal. Had they not been awake approximately twenty hours a day, she thinks they would both have a different perception.

She only nods, unsure of what to say to Sarah’s words that would actually continue along the conversation.

“Are you… okay?” the other girl asks a moment later when she notices Clementine’s silence.

There’s many things Clementine can say in response. Potentially, she can say yes. She can say no. Maybe. She can turn to Sarah and say, _Why yes, I’m absolutely fine._ But overall, it’s that sentence – just that simple question that Clementine is so tired of hearing. Over and over, she doesn’t know how many times she’s heard it.

“I wish you guys would stop asking me that.”

A pause. Sarah says nothing for a moment, and for that brief moment, Clementine wonders if she should have simply said yes and called it a night. It would be better; she hates it when people pour out their sorrows on her, and she finds no reason whatsoever to project this on Sarah.

But then, Sarah looks up, eyes wide. In a hushed voice, she asks, “… Why?”

Clementine wants to say something sarcastic, but knows this isn’t a good time. Instead, she finds herself looking down and away as she sways her leg side to side.  
“It makes me… think about everything.” She closes her eyes tightly and runs her fingers over the glucose monitor in her pocket. “I keep _thinking_ about what Kenny said earlier.”

Nodding slowly, Sarah touches Clementine’s arm lightly, as if urging her to go on.

“I know he was just – _angry_.” Clementine admits, resting her head against the black bar on the stairwell. Angry is an understatement. His words are like a smack to the face with a brick; a heavy weight hovers over her chest as she swallows the pride she previously held and slowly adds, “I just keeping thinking about it. He-he _blames me_.”

Deep inside, part of her thinks blaming herself is silly – she didn’t bite Sarita. She didn’t consume human flesh. But as she thinks to herself, there’s still the Devil on her shoulder, whispering in her ear. And it doesn’t matter what _she_ thinks; it matters what Kenny thinks, and if he thinks it’s her fault that Sarita is dead, then that’s his opinion. And that would influence his opinion on her, and how he treated her in the future.

Clementine can’t stop the question of whether he blames her for his eye, as well. The words he said directly after standing up come back to her – _That wasn’t… your fault. So don’t go blamin’ yourself for that… it’s all right._  
Even if he doesn’t blame her, she blames herself.

“He blames you for… for what happened to Sarita?”

She nods, raking her head against the black metal bar.

Her eyes are itching again as silence appears between them for several seconds. Sarah seems stunned, as if she’s so sheltered that she can’t understand the process of Kenny’s so-called _irrational_ blaming. Sarah didn’t hear Kenny screaming at Clementine for help – and even if she had, she may have mistaken it for something else; maybe concern for Clementine’s well-being.  
Slowly, Clementine swallows the lump in her throat and she finally begins to address the elephant in the room. Anyone who heard Kenny’s words knows exactly what she’s thinking about. Before she speaks, she knows she’ll regret the words she’s about to say – but it doesn’t even slow her down.

“I keep thinking about what he said about me dying.” She bows her head, not making eye contact. “Sometimes, I wish I would.”

It’s at that moment that Clementine remembers the gunshots she heard all those years ago in a forest in the middle of rural Georgia, only to learn that Kenny’s wife Katjaa had shot herself in the head. Katjaa, who was probably one of the most level headed, optimistic people had seriously taken a gun and completely eaten it. Clementine remembers how much her eight year old self wanted to be like Katjaa.

When the wood creaks behind them, both girls immediately look up into the battered face of Kenny. His stare focuses on Clementine, and she feels a burst of guilt and shame course through her every being as she meets his eye.

“Clem –”

Before he can even finish her name, she’s on her feet. Without even looking back, Clementine heads for the staircase. Truthfully, she doesn’t even know where she’s going to go; the bottom of the stairwell sounds nice, but impractical. Of course, though, Clementine would never admit to being entirely rational about her decisions.

He calls her name again; she hears the squeaking of the loose boards, but as she makes her way down the stairs, she doesn’t look back.

“I don’t want to talk right now.”

Sarah stands up from her place on the landing, looking a mix between fearful and awkward. Without saying anything to either of them, she leaves the stairwell, leaving both of them completely alone together.

“I was angry, Clem.” is all Kenny can manage to say. His eye is still widened, staring at Clementine with a sort of shock that she hasn’t seen in him since she told the group about her illness. “I got angry and I said stupid things that I shouldn’t’ve said.”

She doesn’t face him. Instead, her arms cross across her chest as she stares down at the step beneath her.

“I-I loved Sarita.” Kenny pauses, and Clementine thinks he must be shaking his head. “I was lookin’ for someone to blame so I didn’t have to…” He trails off for a moment. A small amount of irritation courses through Clementine, because all she wants him to do is finish his sentence. “I didn’t have to blame myself. And – that _wasn’t_ your fault. Darlin’, I shouldn’t have said that.”

Clementine blurts out the only thing she can think to say: “I know.” She knows that Kenny was angry, and she knows he shouldn’t have said what he did. To her, it doesn’t make it any less true. She thinks to herself that even if he hadn’t said it then, maybe he would have said it at an even worse time. Slowly, and without making eye contact, she turns to face him, still glaring down at the ground. She can’t let him see the tears forming in her eyes; to her, it just seems too _pathetic_. “But that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt.”

Shaking his head, Kenny almost can’t meet her eyes either. Or at least her forehead, because she’s still looking down at the ground.  
“Fuck,” he whispers, barely audible. “Clem… dammit, I’m sorry – I’m _so sorry_ I made you feel like that.” Drawing in a small breath, he says to her, “You’re not gonna die.”

“Yeah,” Clementine grumbles, looking to the left. “I wonder where I got that idea from.”

“I shouldn’t have ever told ya that.”

“You’d still think that though, wouldn’t you?”

The question is one that even Clementine has difficulty answering about her own thoughts. Her own relationship with death is a rough one. As a child who’s seen so much of it, she has difficulties seeing as anything but pure evil in some cases and a godsend in others. And even the thoughts of death are ones that are questionable. So many times she’s thought about death of herself and her loved ones, but she doesn’t really want to _die_ , per say.

It feels different with Kenny. Maybe it’s because he’s someone she trusts – she’s not one-hundred percent sure – but somehow, it hurts more than the random death threats she’s gotten from every stereotypical, crazed “bad guy” she’s met.

“No, I fuckin’ _wouldn’t_.”

She nods slowly, thinking how she knows this isn’t true. He would still think about, despite his words. It’s human nature, after all.

“Fuckin’ hell, Clementine – _no_ , I don’t think that! I said somethin’ I didn’t mean, and I don’t… blame you for that. Or anythin’. So you can stop blamin’ yourself for it.”

At that moment, Clementine wants to turn to look him straight in his good eye and tell him what she really thinks he would say if he was speaking his thoughts. It would be the exact same things he did tell her, because she knows that deep inside, he believes it. Maybe not as deeply as his verbal words implied, but every single little word would be believed… at least a small amount.

“I had to shoot Lee, you know.” Clementine can’t even look at him now. Talking about Lee has never been easy. Not to Christa and Omid; not to Luke; not even to Kenny when he brought Lee up that one time at the Ski Lodge. And even more, she thinks of her parents. “And then right after _that_ , I had to watch my parents –” Nausea immediately shoots through her system as the mental images come back, and she thinks of the decayed, rotting faces of the people she once had her tears wiped away by. “They were-they _ate a person_. And _they didn’t even know who I was_!”

Now, she does manage to look up at him, and Kenny doesn’t look able to speak. He’s slack jawed at her response, as if he’d forgotten what she had talked about every moment of the day when their first group planned their trip to Savannah.

“So don’t be an _asshole_ ,” The word feels almost foreign on Clementine’s tongue, but she doesn’t pay this any mind. “And pretend you’re the only one who’s lost people.”

Part of it is the inability to simply _put the experience behind her_. Part of it is the fact that Kenny’s brought this up, and he’s inadvertently reopened the still-fresh wound; her words bleed into his consciousness so quickly that she doesn’t even want to bring up Christa.

She doesn’t wait around for Kenny to say something. Her body completely on autopilot, she forces her way past him, back up the stairs, and into the room in the observation deck. She hopes he doesn’t see her forcing herself to hold back her tears, because that would result in another can of worms she doesn’t want to open.

* * *

 If anyone’s heard the ensuing argument going on the stairwell, they don’t let it on. When Kenny finally walks in, he immediately leaves the room again for the deck. Clementine doesn’t look up.

A part of her is sorry. The other isn’t.

All she wants to do is sleep. Her eyelids are drooping now and if it weren’t for the fact that Carlos takes an extremely long time to calculate her long-acting insulin dose, she would be fast asleep, probably in the corner of the room. Luke watches her, also looking exhausted, from said corner of the room.

When Carlos does eventually leave Rebecca’s side, he begins to unload the supplies onto a rag; first one of the insulin vials, a syringe, a capped and unopened needle, and then the same pen and paper that’s littered with scribbled, almost unreadable writing from both of them.

Clementine pulls the wrapper from the granola bar she got from Bonnie earlier. A whopping eighteen grams of carbohydrates are listed under the nutritional facts, and part of her doesn’t care enough to push the other ripped pieces back together to read the grams of sugar. She hardly cares enough to even read the nutritional facts at all.

“Have you tested yet?”

No is the answer. Clementine hasn’t tested her blood glucose in the last few hours, not since she, Rebecca, and Jane made their way to Parker’s Run. Too much has been going on for her to care about something like her own health. Part of her doesn’t even care anymore.  
She doesn’t want to die. Except for times like this when she feels so overwhelmed with the constant pressures to shoulder every little thing that’s going on. Even then, she still can’t say she wants to _die_ , really. More like go to sleep for a really long time and never wake up.

Irritability flows throughout her veins. She looks Carlos straight in the eye as she pulls out the glucose monitor. Her eye contact hardly wavers as she pulls the lancet pen from its holder on the side of the monitor, places it over her finger, and practically stabs the pad. Then, still maintaining eye contact, she allows the test strip sticking out of the bottom of the monitor to take in the dot of blood.

It beeps a moment later. Clementine breaks eye contact only to look down at the number. It flashes **484**  and **HI** underneath. She holds it up, just long enough for Carlos to read it. Then, before she can even think through her actions she yanks the test strip out of the bottom of the monitor and flings it across the room, towards the deck.

Truthfully, there isn’t a single thing Clementine can pinpoint that made her think this was a good idea. She didn’t even think about it until she was actively doing it. Carlos only lifts an eyebrow, but doesn’t say anything about her “passive” aggressive behavior.

“It’s going down, at least.” he sighs, looking down at the diabetic supplies. Flipping through the pad of paper to find a clean page, he looks back up to Clementine and asks, “How do you feel _physically_?”

Truthfully, she feels like _shit_. She’s hungry again, though her emotional want for food is approximately zero. She’s thirsty, though she can’t bring herself to place any more pressure on the group by drinking up half of one of the giant water bottles. She has to pee, again, but she knows it’s just something she’s going to get used to.

She shrugs, not answering verbally. Her mouth refuses to work.

“Well, you’re not seizing.” _Thank God,_ Clementine thinks. “Once you get to a normal level, you’ll feel a lot better.”

A moment passes before Clementine looks over to Luke, then down at the diabetic supplies, and then back up to Carlos. Her question isn’t one she thought of asking him earlier, fearing the worst would come out of it. She thinks that it’s… a lot more strategic and straightforward than the previous question of her own mortality.

“When I get to a normal level,” she begins, placing her freezing hands in her pockets, “Does that mean…?”

Carlos doesn’t even let her finish. It’s probably a good thing, because Clementine doesn’t think she can get the rest of the question out. It’s only been two and a half days and she’s already sick of this constant shots thing. The outside of her stomach _hurts_ , and like hell too, whenever she moves. Her fingers feel sore when she just tries to pick something up.

“No.”

She knows it’s too much to think that a few days of shots is enough to cure type one diabetes. She knows it was too much to hope for.

“I’m sorry, Clem. It’s not going away.”

Clenching her teeth, Clementine looks down so much that the bill of her baseball cap obscures her eyes. She doesn’t want to cry in front of him or Luke, or Rebecca and the baby. Or Sarah, who is a few feet away. She doesn’t want to cry in general.

“It’s an autoimmune disease, Clementine. It’s going to be with you for life. But once you get to a normal level, it will feel a lot more manageable.” Of course, she doubts this. “And that brings me to my next point. Hypoglycemia.”

It’s Luke who speaks up the time when he asks about the difference between hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia, and Carlos explains. Hypo, meaning low, refers to what’s almost describable as a temporary deficiency of a healthy amount of glucose in the blood stream; also known as low blood sugar.

And hyper, meaning high. Clementine looks away when he explains this to Luke.

“Hyperglycemia is what she’s experiencing now. Her pancreas isn’t producing insulin, so it can’t deal with any carbohydrates and sugars in her body, or break them down, or really do much of anything. So her blood glucose level rises because there’s nothing naturally regulating it.”

Luke nods slowly, as if he understands. Clementine briefly wonders if she gets any sort of doctor-patient privilege, or if her condition is serious enough that Carlos is completely fine lecturing Luke on the importance of having a working pancreas.

“And hypo – that’s caused by insulin?”

Carlos nods, looking over to Clementine, as if wordlessly asking for permission to explain the information. She says nothing.

“Yes. It’s – actually _not_ a solely diabetic thing. Vera, the nurse at Howe’s, had reactive hypoglycemia. She wasn’t diabetic, she just seemed to produce more insulin than necessary, it seems.”

“Lucky her.” Clementine grumbles, watching Carlos load the insulin into the syringe.

He looks up, as if wants to say something to this remark, but instead continues on his pseudo lecture. “Once you do get to a normal level, you may end up experiencing it at times. It’ll be a good idea to keep something on you – crackers or a granola bar, maybe.” Carlos looks up and shoots Clementine a small, knowing glare. “And that means you’ll have to eat something.”

Clementine ignores the last remark, simply asking, “What’s the ‘normal’ level?”

“Between ninety and one hundred and ten, approximately. If you test, and you’re heading towards eighty, you’re most likely heading towards hypoglycemia.”

“That can kill faster, can’t it?”

Clementine doesn’t look at Luke. It feels like a slap in the face for him to ask something like that in front of her, and she briefly considers getting up to administer a slap to his face. They discuss death. Constantly. It’s a constant cycle of death, it seems.

Everything is death or risking a life. And now, Clementine knows that just existing is risking her life.

Carlos glances over to Clementine for just a second before replying, “It… _can_ , yes. There’s a higher threshold for hyperglycemia; it takes longer for someone to die from hyperglycemia or its complications than it does for low blood glucose, because hypoglycemia is actively fueled by insulin. But hypoglycemia is also easier to treat than hyperglycemia.”

There’s a pause as he begins to flick the syringe. Several air bubbles float to the top and burst.

“You may start to get extremely hungry or irritable.” Had Clementine not just taken her blood a few minutes before, she would have gotten worried. “You’ll probably start to sweat or shake excessively.” With a glance over to Luke, Carlos quickly tells him, “If you see that, please get something in her.” Clementine looks down at her discarded granola bar. “If whatever you do eat has nutritional facts, please keep them with you. You’ll have to bolus for it with insulin.”

But Clementine shakes her head, now staring at the remaining vial of insulin. “I don’t want it.”

Carlos holds up the syringe and asks, “The insulin?”

“Clem, you gotta take the insulin.”

“I don’t want the insulin.” She has tears threatening to spill that she keeps trying and trying and _trying_ to hold back. She isn’t afraid of the insulin. She isn’t afraid of needles; they barely hurt. She’s afraid of dying, though. The disease is terrifying. The new information is nothing short of terrifying.

“Clementine,” Carlos speaks, sounding both firm and slightly irritated. “You have to take this insulin. This is a controllable condition. If I could, I would put you on an insulin pump right now, it would make my job a lot easier – but we _don’t_ have that. We have to improvise with the injections. It’s not a death sentence.”

“You’re not the one living it.”

For a moment, it looks like she may have struck a nerve. Or perhaps, Carlos is just extremely tired and wants to go to sleep. Clementine can relate. He says in a cross tone, “That may be so. But it’s not a death sentence. Now, are you going to give yourself this injection, or am I going to have to do it for you?”

“I’m not taking it.”

“Fine.” Carlos replies, almost immediately. Clementine isn’t surprised; she remembers her mother’s stories of dealing with non-compliance. “I’m not going to hold you down. Luke?”

That’s when a small bolt of fear hits her. Luke looks up, and Carlos asks him in a quiet, discrete voice to hold her still while he gives her the injection. But there’s no way in any Heaven or Hell that may or may not exist that she’s going to let Luke hold her down while she gets an injection.

And she takes the injection; she gives it to herself, wanting to cry or scream from frustration. Afterwards, she places the used needle down on the rag with everything else and pushes herself against the wall.

Indignant as Clementine is, she knows they’re right. But she’ll never admit it.

A moment later, Luke quietly says, “Clem, you remember how ya told me your mom was a doctor?"

She has nothing to say to him.

“How do you think she’d feel if she was here?” Clementine doesn’t answer. She doesn’t know what her mother would think because she’s not here. “She’d be worried, Clem. She’d be concerned about your wellbeing, but she would tell you that you’re _not_ gonna die. Shit, kid, she’d be scared if you didn’t take the insulin…”

“Don’t talk about my mom, Luke.”

“I’m sorry.”

They say nothing else to each other, and Luke goes back to his previous activity of picking at the hem of his sleeves. Carlos disposes of the used needle, and begins to load the rest of the diabetic supplies back into his bag, along with all of the other medical supplies. Clementine pulls the lid to the lancet pen off, then pushes it back on.

Rebecca, the baby, and Sarah are asleep now. No one knows where Jane is; Clementine doesn’t care. Mike, Bonnie, and Kenny are out on the deck. She can hear muffled conversation, though the actual words are inaudible.

Without saying anything, Clementine curls up against the wall. She crushes her baseball cap to her chest and pulls her hood up over her head. Using her arms as a pillow, she drifts off into sleep, as if she hadn’t been threatened with a forced injection earlier. As if she hadn’t expressed thoughts of death to Sarah earlier, or told Kenny to stop being an asshole. She just wants sleep.

Things are almost normal. Almost.


End file.
